#alaia is way too young to watch a proper horror film but shhh

[pigeonwhumps]

A hole in the family

Sanctuary masterlist

Taglist: @littlespacecastle @mirasmirages @flowersarefreetherapy @whumpinggrounds @painful-pooch @i-eat-worlds @a-funeral-romance @rainydaywhump

Samantha, aka Lea's, family mourns.

1.2k

CWs: BBU setting, grief and mourning, presumed dead, implied assault, self-neglect

Samantha's declared dead two months after she goes missing. The police have pulled a body out of the river and apparently there's evidence that it's hers.

Omari... doesn't say much, when he's informed. What is there to say? His daughter's dead. And then he has to tell everyone else.

It's hard to believe it. He's not sure he can. He has to write an obituary, and he's starting to get why people are always described as perfect in them. It feels like tainting her, somehow, to put down anything less. She had personality, life, so many quirks that made people argue with her but he can't put them down on paper. She is was, still, his perfect daughter.

He avoids the river, now. He used to go there with Sam to feed the birds, a bag of dried peas every week, and he wonders, sometimes. Is it an insult to her memory not to go there anymore? Do birds remember? But he can't. Not knowing they pulled her body out of there.

He still goes to the orchestra concerts, him and Kayla. Sam's gone but for a few hours they can pretend she's still there, unable to see that she's not with their eyes closed, just listening to the music and forgetting, just for a little bit, that it's not Sam performing on stage. That that's not the reason she's not sitting with them, even though it should be.

_

Mariano cleans the flat, almost obsessively. Everything is sparkling, now, more than it ever was. It helps that Samantha's mess is out of the way, in her bedroom, but that just makes Mariano feel worse.

Everything is sparkling except for Sam's room. All the winter coats are tidied away, except for Samantha's. After all, she might need it. She might come back and need it and then what would they do?

And she can't bear to go in Samantha's room. She just can't. Ade and Faith and Alaia do, she knows Alaia sleeps there sometimes, but she just can't.

Her daughter is dead. Or missing, as Ade says, but gone all the same.

It's time to clean the good coats. It's almost time for the spring concert. She'll clean Samantha's too, and her shoes. Maybe they'll get a miracle.

The funeral was beautiful. Too beautiful. The orchestra played Venus, with a seat left free for her daughter, and it was as cheerful as Samantha would've liked it to be, and packed full to bursting, but she could hardly bear it. Her daughter is dead, and no matter the type of funeral that's not going to change.

_

They're having another argument, her and Faith. Pizza toppings, this time. After Faith being wrong for the umpteenth time, Kayla turns automatically to Sam. So does her sister.

She's not there.

Of course she's not there, she hasn't been there for months.

It hits Kayla like a truck every time, bowling her over. Her chest is crushed and she can barely breathe.

Sam is dead.

Her baby sister, who was born so tiny, who has always loved music, who would have been world-famous if she'd had a chance to grow, if she hadn't hated the idea so much. Who she'd put her first paycheck towards so Sam could continue the violin lessons she loved so much when the cost went up.

Their last conversation was an argument. She doesn't remember what about anymore, it doesn't matter. She thought they'd make up later, they always did, but then Sam had gone to her concert and something had happened to her and they'd found her violin a few days later, the case scuffed from what the police said was likely a struggle, and what happened to her?

And now... now they won't see her again. She can't make up with her baby sister, or apologise, or even just see her.

She still goes to watch the concerts, with her dad. It feels like she should. Not going would be abandoning Sam for good. And it feels like, just for an hour, Sam is with them, somewhere. On the stage, in life, but... Kayla doesn't believe in ghosts, but if she did, she'd say that this is where she would be.

_

It's family film night. They're watching a film. Or trying to, anyway. No-one can agree.

Samantha's vote goes towards a horror film. She'd have to hide behind the nearest person, first jumpscare in, but she'd vote to watch one anyway.

Eventually, Alaia votes for a horror film, holding Hugo tight. And so with two votes they start one.

Faith misses having Sam curled up beside her, head pillowed on Faith's shoulder, feet tucked under her. Face ready to be hidden in Faith if she needs it.

Her dad starts the film.

She watches, tension rising, until the first jumpscare. The lack of a squeal of fear, a tightening of pressure on her arm, a face burying itself into her, popcorn spraying, it's worse than the jumpscare. She stifles a sob and stands up.

"I can't watch this."

Sam rubbed people up the wrong way sometimes, she didn't always get on with her family and Faith wouldn't have wanted her to, but she's Faith's sister and she's gone and Faith wants her back.

_

Sammy's teddy is lonely now. Alaia is looking after him, so he's still warm and hugged and loved, but he must be lonely without Sam. There's no music now, filtering through the flat from Sammy's room as she plays.

Played?

Plays.

Alaia is careful to keep Hugo clean and tidy and in nice pyjamas, but it's not enough. He must still be lonely. Alaia is. She's always empty now. She hugs Hugo when she feels especially sad or anxious, her tears making him soggy as she remembers Sammy and their games, but it's not the same. It's not the same as hugging Sammy.

Especially when Sammy can't do anything about the pain this time. She's the cause of it and she can't do anything about it.

_

Ade's devastated. It's not romance, not quite, what they had. They never defined it, exactly. But for all that it was, she's the most important person in his life.

And now she's gone.

He doesn't know what to do with himself. What is he supposed to do, now that Sammy's gone?

It takes a week. A week, before his brother shoves him in the shower and orders food.

He's lost his job by now, probably. He doesn't care.

Everything he sees reminds him of her. The Foodhall Project, where they first met. Black and red braids, a yellow top. A black woman laughing, head thrown back, unselfconscious. A violin on a tram, patches carefully stitched or glued onto the case. A snippet of music by Holst, her favourite composer. Dual language books, Swahili CDs, adverts for language lessons.

He hasn't been able to keep up the Swahili lessons without Sammy there to poke and prod and tease him.

Some days, it's all he can do to wake up.

Eventually, he makes it onto the darker, more secretive corners of the internet. Darker is maybe the wrong word, because what they're doing is good, hope. He gives them a description of Sammy to circle around the safehouses. Maybe she's not dead. Maybe she'll turn up.

Nothing comes of it.