Bring Me Back to Life

Howard didn’t mean to be such a Grinch, but oh, did he hate the holidays. It was a relief to see the decorations coming down, all of the colorful lights ripped from storefronts and people going back to their normal bustling lives. Maybe it was because Christmas had lost its magic for him years ago, but New Years had long before that. What bothered him the most was the fakeness of it all. People putting on forced smiles and pretending that life was suddenly so much better for two weeks, handing out gifts to others they spent eleven months complaining about and swearing up and down they were going to change. It was all bullshit, every last bit of it. He would tell anyone that asked, though most knew better than that.

He just so happened to be approaching the building when the door was pulled open, halting to blink at the girl standing in the doorway. Drinking. That was another thing about the holidays. Everyone woke up lost and hungover and he was always too painfully sober to deal with them. It seemed to be worse this year for whatever reason. Everyone had lost their marbles. “There are plenty of people here, love,” he commented in the nicest tone he could muster despite his annoyance, “you’ll have to be more specific.”

Daisy heard the voice and turned, jumping a little when she saw how close he was to her. Immediately, her brain tried to place him but it was impossible, who was he? More importantly, who was he to her? Was he someone she knew? It didn’t seem like it. His voice wasn’t familiar and why would it be? She knew this wasn’t her world...well, it was but it wasn’t right. She wasn’t right. Blue eyes met hazel ones and there wasn’t any recognition there for her. 

“Who are you?” she asked, realizing as soon as she said it that if he knew Charlotte, she was giving something away as the words left her lips. But it was too late. Whatever damage she would cause by asking a simple question was already done. She didn’t regret it. Daisy had to start making sense of this, she was dead. She had been dead, that much she remembered, so how was she here? How was she up and breathing, feeling the world around her like she had never been buried underground?

      “Charlotte.” A name that he was sure would haunt him upon Harrison’s return. Perhaps it had been alright to deceive his children but even Orson knew that the price paid for interference with those you loved would always be the highest – he hoped this would be as smooth as he planned, over before it could become a true problem.

“There is,” he stepped towards her and in the process papers scattered to the ground, the writing on them unreadable, beyond understanding, his body only inches from hers but his face far enough that his sullen expression would be visible to her even in the dim light of the room, “I need you. And if I believed there was any better fit then I would truly say so but there is nobody quite like you, filled with so much stubborn determination and yet such a gentle spirit. You are the perfect fit, nobody is more worthy of a position in the elite.”

Orson, her father-in-law, that’s right - Daisy had almost forgotten. It was easy to take herself out of her mother’s body in her mind, but that wasn’t how things worked in reality. Papers fell from his desk and her eyes followed them, trying to make out what they said but only making her more curious because she couldn’t read them. He walked closer and closer still until he was only inches away from her. But she didn’t move. Daisy remembered experiencing something similar, the same tactics from a different man. 

“Need me?” She was a bit thrown by that but not altogether surprised, this seemed right on for Orson, and for Charles. Her heart ached for a moment as his face flashed in her mind's eye before she focused back on her grandfather. “A position in the elite? What on earth are you talking about Orson?” She smiled, for a second forgetting herself and falling into her mother. Then she was back. The elite? Daisy knew what that was. He had to be talking about the Seven. This was it. This was the moment that would change Charlotte’s life forever, and Daisy’s in the process.

Hearing the other girl laugh caused her to relax slightly, the mood in the room becoming lighter for just a moment. As Charlotte explained her dream, Karen couldn’t help but to wince, her lips pursed together. “What a horrible, horrible dream,” she muttered, shaking her head as she leaned into the girl, rubbing her back comfortingly. Cassandra had done it when she was younger, back when she had first arrived at Whittemore, and it had always managed to make things feel a little safer. She hoped it helped Charlotte now. “The good thing is that, you know, it’s just a dream. Or a nightmare, I guess.” Pausing for a moment, she put a bit more effort into her words than usual, momentarily toeing the line between the two worlds she flickered between. “Besides, we wouldn’t let anything happen to you, Charlotte. No nightmares here,” the girl smiled softly.

For some reason, even though Daisy knew it wasn’t really dream at all, it made her feel better to tell someone about it and have them sympathize with her. Even if it wasn’t real. Even if she was still trapped in her mother’s body in, what must have been, her time at Whittemore. The hand on her back was unexpected and the girl tensed up, but after only a couple of seconds she relzed into it. It was nice to have someone comforting her instead of running away. “Thank you. I know you wouldn’t. I know none of you would let something happen to me.” And as the words tumbled out of her mouth, Daisy wasn’t sure if she believed them. Could she trust them? After what she knew about her mother, could she trust anyone she met here?

The fear was evident in the girls tone and it was something Rose wasn’t familiar with, but understood just the same. Daisy French was not one to easily crumble in the face of a challenge. Is that what she was calling this? a challenge? No. “I don’t have many answers, but, something has gone seriously wrong, I know that much.”

Rose took another sip of her drink before taking a deep breath, as if mustering up the courage to say it. “You must have come from a timeline before…” Rose didn’t want to say too much. Daisy had died. Her death had felt like a lifetime ago. The thought of Daisy and Trevor… of Charles, it had plagued her mind for years. Pain was a little easier to stomach after time. Rose had been given all the time in the world to mourn, to grieve and to remember those that they’d lost. Daisy had never been close with Rose- but she was family, in a deranged way that only the Whittemore kids understood. 

“It’s 1992 and I don’t know how or why, but you’ve been given a second chance.”

“Seriously wrong?” Daisy could almost laugh at that. If this was considered seriously wrong she hated to think of what would be considered a disaster. “That might be a bit of an understatement, Rose.” Daisy took a breath as Rose took another drink, waiting to see what she would say next. To see if she would have any of the answers Daisy was looking for. When she trailed off, Daisy chuckled to herself, she’d already come to this realiztion herself. She had already freaked out about it, in the most Daisy way possible, and she’d started to move on. “Before I died, you mean? It must have been but I remember it. I remember dying...but nothing after it.”

1992. There it was. The year that couldn’t be possible. She couldn’t really be here, neither of them could be. But here they were. In the flesh. Something Daisy couldn’t dispute. “A second chance..” Daisy repeated, her voice fading. “Why? Why would I be given a chance when none of it matters. Besides you, I know no one. Maybe there are others like us, but no offense, does it make a difference? I have no one. Sean isn’t here. Jonah..” She stopped, her heart aching immediately. “They’re all in a future where I no longer exist. What is the point of this?”

“high expectations, i guess.” she did for everything, it was a major vice, as it always left her disappointed. she had grown used to the disappointment, a friend to join her misery, the company it so clearly desired. “that’s true, but you never know.” it was part of why bethany rarely got wasted, a fear for the unknown that could happen when she was lost in the sauce. “it never feels like the year it becomes, but we’ll get used to it. then once we do, it becomes 93.”

“Isn’t that just the way it is?” There was something about this girl that Daisy liked. A camaraderie in their melancholy natures, something she could pick up from her aura even though it was becoming obvious she had been trying hard to seem like someone she wasn’t. “I don’t think that will ever change. As humans, we’re destined to never get used to anything in time before it changes again. It’s the way life is and will continue to be.”

Charlotte was someone who Karen considered family. Not because they were extremely close, but because after marrying Harrison she’d entered the French family, a family Karen liked to believe she was included in, if only on the fringe. As the girl shivered, Karen rubbed her back, attempting to warm her up.·“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Charlotte,” she hummed, shaking her head as she referenced the books in her arms.·“I didn’t want to do my work anyways. Just had to look like I’m trying, you know, for Orson.” Karen lead the girl to the common area, gesturing for her to take a seat on the sofa before taking one herself. Grabbing a blanket off of the back of the sofa, she offered it to the girl.·“Do you wanna talk about your dream?”

She smiled gratefully at the girl, something about her seemed familiar, but Daisy couldn’t place it. She was almost like a dream you start forgetting as soon as you wake up and it fades with every minute of consciousness. She knew her, that much Daisy was sure of, and not as Charlotte but as Daisy. Somehow, she was sure she knew her. “Thank you.” She laughed at the mention of Orson, knowing from the stories of her grandfather, what he could be like. Or was he her father now? It was all too confusing. They sat down together inside and Daisy took a deep breath. “Well, it was terrible really. I dreamt...well, I dreamt I was dead. I had been shot.” Her eyes closed and she was transported back to that time, the time that was anything but a dream. A living nightmare. “I was shot and I died..”

Chase let out a relieved chuckle as he wrapped his arms back around Daisy, happy to be hugging someone who knew him. “No, me too,” he said as he examined the girl in front of him. “Yeah…. same with my dad.” He’d always heard that he looked like his father, but never knew the similarities were so strong. Except, of course, for the eyes. He had his mother’s eyes. The one piece of her he kept with him long after she’d gone. “Do you know if there’s any others? Or is it just us?”

She couldn’t keep her eyes off of him, a smile still on her lips as she noticed all the small differences she could pick out between Chase and his dad. “I think Rose is here. Have you seen her? I ran into her the first day I woke up. I’m not sure about anyone else. I don’t know what’s going on or how we got here and...” she paused, Daisy wasn’t sure if she wanted to bring it up but she had to figure out the truth if she could. “And I don’t know how I’m alive right now. If I am. I’m still debating if this is hell or something. I - Chase, I was dead, how is this possible?”

“you think something bad might have happened?” beth questioned, always a curious little girl, feeling like alice liddel before she had fallen into the hole of wonderland. maybe she already had and didn’t realize it, maybe whittemore was her wonderland and she was trapped already. “just taking some shots, dancing, nothing worth telling. very mundane.” maybe she did need some excitement in her life, let loose before it was too late. “wow, you really did drink a lot. it’s 1992, duh. second year of the nineties, yipee!” very sarcastic, devil may care, trying so hard to be cool bethany.

“That sounds like most people on New Years Eve, I wouldn’t consider it all that boring.” Daisy gave the girl a small smile, shrugging. “I don’t know if something bad happened, I don’t think so...I’m still here aren’t I?” When she said the year, Daisy tried not to show how her heart stopped, her stomach dropping, as she tried to wrap her mind around her words. “1992? Damn it still feels like it’s pre-90s, you know what I mean?” She laughed, trying to play off how uncomfortable she felt now. “I can’t believe it.” That much, at least, was true.

       Books thrown in every direction, a table almost upturned in papers that ranged from scrawls to vicious scribbles. A family photo upturned on the edge of a desk, as if the haunting eyes of his children by being absent would make the unquenchable feeling inside of him go away. Only Cassandra could of told the school that the bags under Orson’s eyes were from a descent into hell like no other, the students, his own children besides Charles, oblivious to his unravelling mentality and the lengths he would go to in order to get what he wanted. What he needed. He was blinded by his path and those who stumbled into the war he waged now against the world were blinded by his stature and certainty from seeing that he truly had no idea what he was doing, “You came,” he turned towards the opening door to find one of whom he had summoned earlier that day, the light spilling in with a ghastly shade that satisfied nobody, “Please sit.”

@bethanylaws @lorettaklein @legendarysarah @s-fawkes @karenxbell @thefrenchflower @carriesinclair

When she received the summons from Orson, her grandfather or her father now, she wasn’t sure, Daisy didn’t think to not come and see what he wanted. The door opened easily at her touch and she walked into his office, not saying much as she crossed over to an empty chair. It was unbelievable how easy it had become for her to hide her surprise at seeing people from a past she never lived. If Orson had called her a few days ago, she didn’t think she would have been able to hide her shock at how much he looked...how much he was Sean. Her eyes never left the man she had grown up with, the one who wasn’t her brother but had been more of a family than she could remember. She wouldn’t have made it without him, she still believed that. Daisy wondered if he knew who she was, who she really was, and she believed without a doubt that if anyone did, it was him. “Is there something you needed?”

His expression softened when he recognized the person who had recognized him. “Daisy…?” he questioned softly. She was here, and alive, and somehow caught up in this mess with him. “No, Daisy, you’re right. It’s me. It’s Chase. But I’m not me. I’m– I think I’m my dad.” He was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea. It wasn’t possible, but somehow it had happened. Where did that leave him–Chase? Was his father now in his body? Did Chase even exist? “Are you, you know, you? Or–”

It had been a busy day already, and if Karen were to guess, it couldn’t have been past noon. A few books from the library tucked underneath her arm, she was preparing to get some work done in her room and then spend a few hours rearranging her furniture and pretending it counted as a resolution. A panicked sounding voice broke through the quiet of the breezy day, and as the redhead looked up she came face to face with Charlotte, although there was something different in the girl’s expression. 

“Earth to Charlotte, what are you doing out here in your jammies?” Her tone was joking, but the grin on her face didn’t quite sit right, concern clear in her eyes. Moving to readjust the books in her arms, she placed one hand on the other girl’s back. “C’mon, it’s way too cold out here. We can talk about whatever’s eatin’ you up inside.”

Charlotte - she had called her Charlotte, so this wasn’t a mistake. This wasn’t a trick her mind was playing on her. And immediately this stranger was bringing her back inside and talking to her like she knew exactly who she was like they were friends. “Okay, you’re probably right.” Daisy let her guide her back inside, away from the cold air and unanswered calls for help. The warmth was almost as biting as the cold, her body shivering as it tried to warm itself back up. “I’m so sorry for causing a ruckus,” her eyes fell to the books in the girl’s hands and she felt even guiltier for interrupting. “You were on your way to do work..I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot, I was freaked out by this dream I had. I couldn’t get it out of my head.”

The new year was finally upon them, yet Alex felt no different. He was still the same try-hard guy, wishing the 80s had never gone away. None of that mattered to him, though. He was going to be the guy he had always planned to be: the hero. Fun, popular, good. It was a fresh year with a world of new possibilities afoot. That was what excited Alexander King and made him jump up from his seat and blast the music. “It’s 1992, dude! Get off your butt and dance with me!”

Daisy had tried to keep to herself once the initial shock of waking up as her mother passed. She still wasn’t convinced that this all wasn’t some kind of fever dream or a level of hell, either one seemed very possible. All of a sudden, music was blasting and she could hardly think about her predicament anymore over the noise. She was about to say something when a voice rose above the beat and once more she heard a year that seemed impossible. “Did you say 1992?” she asked, glancing up at the guy who spoke.

She gladly passed the blanket over to Charlotte with a worried expression. The other girl seemed to be out of sorts, almost as if she was lost, which was strange considering she should know exactly where she was. “Yes hello love now come on, let’s get you inside before your toes fall off.” She wrapped an arm around her housemate to try and make her feel less alone as she guided her back inside. “Sounds like an awfully dreadful nightmare, especially if it had you running out of here at the speed of light and shouting at the gods. You’re okay now though, the most alive Charlotte I’ve ever seen.” Helen opened the door for them and pat her softly on the back. “No need to be sorry, it wasn’t much of a fright really. Happens to the best of us sometimes. You want a cup of tea? Maybe it’ll help you forget about your nightmare.”

Wrapping the blanket around her, Daisy gave her a smile. “Thank you,” she said her voice low. With each step towards the warmth, she was trying to convince herself this had to be a dream but did you dream when you died? She couldn’t remember anything. “It was,” she whispered, nodding. But, as much as she wanted to push it away, Daisy knew it wasn’t a dream. She had died. And either this was hell or some kind of cosmic joke. They got back inside and Daisy immediately started feeling warmth return to her body, only it hurt. Pain spread over her skin and she realized it must have been colder outside than she realized. “Tea would be lovely. Thank you.” How easy it was to fall back into patterns, into routines. Daisy knew everything was wrong, but it seemed like nothing was out of the ordinary for anyone else.

so it JUST occurred to me, Daisy died, yes? She left her loved ones for the grave which includes Jonah, the love of her life pretty much. 

Now she’s back from the dead. A miracle, yes? Of course. But guess what? She’s back in 1992 which means (i’m sure you’ve all figured this out cause i’m dramatic) JONAH IS NOT HERE

SHE WAS DEAD AND IS NOW ALIVE BUT WILL NEVER GET TO SEE HIM AGAIN