#the tragedy of the broken mother will never stop wrenching the heart from my chest.

[mediumgayitalian]

i keep seeing sad posts talking about "may castellan making sandwiches every day waiting in hopes that her son will return" and.

guys.

there is no hope for may castellan. she is not waiting at the door with lunch and a tentative smile, waiting for him to come home even though he didn't yesterday, or yesterday, or yesterday, or yesterday. "in hopes" implies that there will come a day when that hope fades. in hopes implies she knows the odds are bad. in hopes implies reality will eventually catch up to her.

there is no hope for may castellan.

she is not waiting in hopes for her son to return. she is preparing, day after day after day (after day after day after day after day after) for the inevitability that luke will return to her. she does not know he is dead. she does not understand he is gone. she does not realize that time has passed; to her luke is nine, still. to her she is still placidly awaiting to return of a fourth grader. luke is not nineteen and betraying his camp. he is not twenty and housing a titan. he is not twenty one and watching his friends get slaughtered in an arena, twenty-two and forcing his sister to hold up the sky, twenty three and realizing, soul shuddering in his chest, that he has made a mistake he can never take back, that he can never undo what he has done.

luke castellan to his mother is a child who has not yet lost all his baby teeth. the cookies she makes for him are soft, because she remembers that. he still leaves the crust behind on his sandwiches. he has scrapes on his elbows and dirt on his nose. he flinches before he hugs her. he spends a lot of time outside, but he comes home before dark.

may castellan's tragedy is not that she is penelope waiting for odysseus to one day return and we know that he will not. may castellan's tragedy is that she does not understand her hero has left at all. may castellan's tragedy is that she will never understand, and she will continue to age, and continue to deteriorate, and one day she will die and she will spend eternity walking the dying poplar fields, whittled down to the memory of something missing from her.

there is no hope for may castellan.

[midnightmusings-et-moi]

“in her eyes he saw a wild appeal for forgiveness.”

Sirius Black angst (written in third person)

A/n: credits for the artwork go to the artist

Warnings: mentions of wounds, distance, mentions of death eaters, crying 

It was long past midnight but she couldn’t sleep. The dorm was quiet and the only source of light were the slivers of silver spilling in through the window. Every time the full moon was due, she never got enough sleep- but always hid it from Sirius by being distant, not wanting him to feel more burdened than he already was. She wasn’t aware just how much this hurt him though, it made him feel like his relationship with the only girl he’s ever loved was crumbling. 

Remus truly did need his friends during this time because his transformations were particularly painful these past months and asking Sirius to stay would be selfish. She worried her head off for the boys, especially Sirius because he had so much on his plate. Very recently news had reached that his younger brother, Regulus, had officially become a death eater. To say Sirius was devastated was an under statement. 

Pulling the covers off her body, she slipped out of her bed and crossed the room to the door. She opened it carefully, not wanting to wake anyone up in the dead of the night. The last sight she saw before closing the door behind her were the silhouettes of her dorm mates rising and falling with every breath they took, deep in peaceful slumber.

She made her way to the boys’ dorm, stopping right outside a dark oak door with “the Marauders” scratched untidily at the very top. Her heart sped up as she pressed down on the cold steel of the handle. For some reason she had a moment of hope- she wanted to open the door and see the dark haired boy behind it, arms open, so she could sink into his touch and be held.

When she pushed open the door, a wave of disappointment hit her, heart sinking to the pit of her stomach. It was empty, obviously. She had expected it to be. Why was she feeling so dejected then?

Her languid frame curled up on the scarlet sheets of Sirius’ bed. They were untidy and the pillows were strewn about, hinting at the hurry which he must have been in. She was motionless but wide awake with blankness tainting her mind and face.

The sheets adorned Sirius’ scent and the pillows smelled like his shampoo but they only sated a small fraction of her need for his presence.

Upon pressing her cheek against the pillow, she felt a small, hard object, under the velvet cover. When she pulled it out to examine it against the moonlight, a dull ache grappled at her heart ; it was a ring with the Black family crest on it. The object was goblin made and there was only one other which belonged to Regulus.

She was taken back to the first time she asked Sirius about the ring. He has smiled fondly, tracing the indents in the cold silver, “Mother had two of these made- one for me and one for Regulus.” His tone dripped with disdain as he talked of his mother but when he spoke his brother’s name, it was laced with love. Even if they grew distant because of Sirius cutting off his family, he cared for him and smiled at the memories of the closely knit brothers playing and laughing together.

His black hair curtained his face, obstructing her view but the clear droplet running down his chin told her everything she needed to know. She held him tighter in, heart breaking for the boy falling apart in front of her. Having never seen him like this, shattered her even more- he wasn’t the macho, carefree, fun loving Sirius in her arms right then. “He was just a child” he rasped.

Tears pricked her eyes at the painful memory and she balled her fists into the pillow for some consolation. When Sirius hurt, she hurt. Every tragedy he faced, she faced. 

The door creaked open and someone stepped in, but she didn’t move because she did not register the presence of another in the room. Only when she heard her name leave the person’s mouth did she turn to see who it was- Sirius. His attire was covered in dirt and his shirt was ripped from the sleeve, a dark slit running down his arm. When he stepped in the moonlight she realized that the slit was a grotesque wound, blood rouging the white of his shirt.

“What happened to you?” her hoarse voice rasped as she hurried to him, carefully lifting his injured arm. “Mooney was a little feisty this evening” he chuckled, but it was devoid of even a drop of humor. The worried girl grasped the spare wand on Sirius’ night stand, murmuring spells to lessen the severity of the wound. He hissed at the stinging sensation shooting up his arm. “Sit down and rest for a bit”

Sirius did as she said, wincing when his arm brushed the bed. “Here” she took his arm lightly stabilizing him so he could lean against the headboard. There was a tension in the room because the two had been so distant as their troubles had pushed them apart. But in that moment all she wanted was for him to hold her close to him and stroke her hair, telling her he was alright. But saying he was alright would be a lie.

“Why are you awake?” Sirius asked after a long silence. “Couldn’t sleep” she whispered trying hard to avoid the topic. He switched on the lamp, casting a low yellow glow on her face ; under her eyes, deep purple circles were etched, her skin was pale and exhaustion traced every inch of her figure. Sirius’ breath hitched in his throat and she immediately looked away.

He didn’t need another reason to be worried. She couldn’t add another weight on his already burdened shoulders, she thought, desperately turning her face away from him. “W-what happened” Sirius questioned with an undertone of horror. “You’re so weak and sleep deprived...” he mentally chastised himself, cursing himself for not noticing earlier. He had been selfish and it showed through the way she was fatigued. Why had he let himself do this to her? Why? Sirius’ gut wrenched at the sallow of her cheeks and the frail ness of her limbs. “It’s all my fault” he thought to himself.

It’s like she had read his mind. She knew he was blaming himself for something which was not in the slightest his fault. “Please don’t” her voice was low and shaky. He looked up at her, his grey irises, tormented. “Please don’t blame yourself, I’m begging you” tears garnered on the brim of her eyes, now spilling down in streams over her boney cheeks.

She couldn’t stand seeing the boy she loved in more pain than he already was, it tore her apart completely. Trying her best to hold back the sobs that fell from her, she murmured a sorry. All the pent up sadness was spilling out after weeks of holding it all in.

Hesitantly, he drew his hand to her cheeks, thumb stroking the wetness away, and in her eyes he saw a wild appeal for forgiveness. His already broken heart shattered into a million pieces at the sight.

With his uninjured arm, Sirius pulled her into his body, her head resting against his warm chest as he kissed the top of her head ;what she had been craving for a long time was finally sated in that moment. She pressed her eyelids into his chest, arms wrapping around his torso.

The two sat there, in the dim light, basking in the comfort each of them provided- but it wasn’t enough to dispel the sadness that shrouded their shoulders.

“Promise me you’ll never shut yourself away from me because you’re scared of burdening me” his voice came out in a whisper. “It’s tearing us apart. I can’t lose you. I love you too much” Sirius’ voice was shaking.

“I promise. Whatever happens to me or to you, I’ll be here. Always” she replied turning her head to look at the boy who was holding her. His skin was a delicate silver in the glow of the night and his hair was messy, falling into his face. “I love you more than you know” she whispered before drawing her lips slowly up to his. “More than you know” Sirius repeated before closing the distance between their mouths.

[theresnosafeharbor4myships]

guys, my heart is breaking at this and for Caryl, but i had to get it out. it’s super angsty and has spoilers for 9x15, and there will be a 2nd part.

Swept Away (also on 9L)

Every time they crossed an enemy, Daryl thought he’d seen the worst this hell of a world had to offer. And every time he learned he’d been wrong.

He’d stared at the pikes, one by one, the tragedy and horror of what he saw steeling into him like poison, and like a car wreck of old, he couldn’t turn away, had the morbid desire to see what the latest and greatest evil had wrought upon those he knew and others he didn’t.

He couldn’t have prepared for what they’d done, but the last three wrenched his heart in such a way he could only heave in a horrified, dumbfounded breath.

Until he remembered that Carol, just to his right, also saw the morbid display of horror.

He couldn’t help yelling out as he’d ran to her, desperate to spare her from the barbarity before them, but he’d already known he’d be too late, her face frozen in disbelief.

He couldn’t undo it, couldn’t take back what she’d seen. He couldn’t protect Henry or her or the heartache that swelled within her to such proportions that she broke in his arms like she had so many lifetimes ago as she’d lost another child.

“Just look at me, just look at me” he’d pleaded, trying to tether her to the earth as it threatened to swallow her, to himself as he sought to block the image from her, a nightmare he knew she’d relive forever.

He’d glanced back once, hoping against hope that his eyes had deceived him, that the boy he’d tracked down was safe behind walls with his father and the new puppy love of his life and the throngs of people enjoying a fair meant to spark happiness and hope.

It wasn’t to be today. He only saw Henry’s face in the walker head, and he’d turned his focus back to Carol.

His chest ached for the ten, some of whom he hadn’t know, but especially for the last few. God, Enid and Tara, both so vibrant and young, strong and courageous. He couldn’t fathom what their last moments would have been like. A shock of defeat shot through him, followed by a roiling hurricane of revulsion in his stomach, the pain so blinding it almost bowled him over and knocked him off his feet, but he forced himself to stay upright to support Carol.

She’d stared up at him in shock, through hair too long and eyes so bright he never wanted anything to dim their spark.

But they were dim now, drowning in a sea of emotions.

She remembered—he saw the second the memory came flooding back to her like a tsunami—a barn, a girl that wasn’t anymore, and the arms that had kept her with them. She knew she could trust those arms again, now, as the earth shook beneath her, promising to carelessly throw her off its ragged edge.

She tried to scream, but the sound wouldn’t rise from her chest, instead pooling in her lungs like a thick sludge bent on suffocating her. She stumbled around, trying to find her footing, and Daryl followed her, stayed with her, and she knew only his arms kept her from shattering into a million broken shards, like porcelain on concrete.

She moved with the sensation of disbelief, futility, and because she thought she might implode if she stopped. His arm pressed against her, holding her to him, and she slumped back against the breadth of his chest, grasping at his arm for support. His chest rumbled against her back, but the white nothing in her brain kept his words from her. She dropped her head, the weight of what she’d seen, what she carried, what was lost, pulling at her like a demon bent on dragging her down with him as the hungry earth rent in two and swallowed her whole.

Daryl took her weight against him, the gaping wound in his chest widening as he let Carol fall apart in his arms.

Once had been bad enough. This was torture of a new kind.

She’d always had the heart of a mother: caring, compassionate, fierce, protective, loving, giving, selfless. He hadn’t known her long the first time, but he hadn’t been able to stay away. Now he couldn’t leave. He’d give anything to undo the steps that led to this, wanted her to burrow safely inside his chest, crawl into his broken heart, the only safe place he could keep her from the horror she seemed to live over and over again.

He held her tightly to him, afraid of what she’d do if he didn’t. Afraid of what he’d do, too.  

Carol’s hearing slowly came back to her, and she heard crying. It took several minutes more to realize the sobbing she heard came from her own mouth. Cold seeped into her from her knees, and she saw she’d fallen to the ground. And still Daryl had his arms around her, was pressed against her back, his voice, broken, aching, raw, but present, whispering a mantra to her. “I gotcha. I gotcha.”

He wanted to soothe her, longed to tell her it’d be alright, but he knew it never would be, and it was the only thing he could promise her, as long as he had breath: I gotcha.

Eventually, her wailing turned to whimpers, and the remaining tension in her body seeped away, leaving her limp and dejected in his arms. Daryl briefly turned to check on the others—Siddiq gripping Michonne’s shoulders as she hunched forward and cried, and Yumiko kneeling on the ground, head down, shoulders shaking; it’d felt like ages, but had likely been only minutes, and none of them had moved.—when he felt more than heard Carol try to speak.

“You gotta…” Her voice sounded like raw skin scraping across sandpaper, and she tried again. “Daryl…please…” She turned her head to look up at him in desperation, her grip on his arm tightening, pleading, and his heart cleaved at the pain written on her face, her tears like tracks of torture scarring her sweet face. “Please,” she whimpered on an agonized cry. “You have to…take him down.”

[the-little-prophet]

The Trolley Problem

Summary: As his visions grow more detailed, Charlie wrestles with the consequences of saving Alana. 

Alternate Title: How To Save A Life

TW for blood, death, detailed description of violence, and ethical quandaries. 

In every version of Charlie’s dream, he changes something. For many versions, he goes to Lana first, trying to use the few minutes he is allotted to gather as much information as possible. By now, he knows her injuries and the pallor of her skin. He has memorized the cuts, the road rash, the collapsed lung, and what comes after. This dream comes with its own ticking clock as the car burns on the side of the road: it’s a bomb with a red wire sizzling down to the quick. It’s tragedy part two. It’s something that Charlie also has to prepare for.

He tries to perform a needle thoracostomy before the car explodes. But the car explodes.

He moves Lana to the other side of the road and covers her body when the car explodes. The car explodes, and Lana’s heart stops.

He goes to the burning wreckage first, carrying with him the tools he learned from his father. But the car itself is another broken body. Its vessels are twisted. It spews liquid and smells like poison. Charlie cannot prevent the explosion, and he feels the blast of it searing through him. He wakes up that after that version screaming that he’s on fire. He stumbles into his bathroom at 4 a.m. in the morning and soaks in icy cold water to get rid of the pain.  

But worst of all: there is a person in the car.

In his waking hours, Charlie chews at the cap of his pen and thinks about that person. He tries to sketch their face (he has drawn Lana’s own many times now. Her profile tilted toward the sky, she looks like she’s in prayer.) But his pencil doesn’t know the shapes. He can’t see the slope of the person’s nose or the colour of their eyes. He remembers blonde hair—shoulder length. He thinks she is a woman.

On Version #86, Charlie goes straight to the car to wrench open the door and drag the woman out. He has no time to be gentle even as all his training in medicine screams at him not to jostle her. But he yanks and he pants and he gets her onto the road before he collapses. Then the car explodes.

Version #87, he wrenches over the door and climbs in, so he can look at her face.

It is all blood. Nose smashed from where she’d struck it against her steering wheel on impact. Eye swollen, both of them closed. Charlie puts his fingers against her pulse and feels that thrum of life still fighting inside her.

He tries to find a purse, an ID, and hears crying.

Charlie’s head darts up. He grips at the chair and leans over the woman and he sees a child.

Then the car explodes.

There is a well-known ethical thought experiment called the Trolley Problem.

You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up people lying on the tracks. You stand next to a lever that controls a switch. If you pull the lever, the trolley will be redirected onto a side track and the five people on the main track will be saved. However, there is a single person lying on the side track. You have two options:

Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.

Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

What do you do?

Are you a passive Samaritan? Or are you an active agent in your own story? Do you take control or do you release it? Is this your burden or does it belong to someone else? No matter what, someone is about to die.

Again: no matter what, someone is about to die.

There are of course all kinds of addendums to the trolley problem. What if pushing someone in front of the trolley could stop it, for example? What if that person is the one who tied up all those people in the first place? Or, what if the one person on the track is the prime minister? A famous artist? A Nobel Peace Prize Winner?

What if the person on the tracks is someone you know? What if the person on the tracks is someone you love?

You cannot walk back up the train tracks and pretend you never saw anything. Even if you did, that’s a choice. But you can never unknow what you know. So what will you do?

Who are you, Charlie Little? Are you the boy who pulls the switch?

 1. Triage

During emergency scenarios, doctors triage to determine who gets care and who doesn’t. A doctor would stipulate this statement—they determine who gets care first and who gets care second. But Charlie knows that isn’t true.

Charlie scrambles over sand on the beaches of Omaha, France in 1943, his medical kit slapping against his hip as he goes. Gun fire chatters around him. He lurches from body to body. Here is a man whose chest has been turned into swiss cheese, there a boy, no older than 18, 19, with a hole where his eye should be. His other one is glassy, staring up through the fog.

Charlie leaves the dead. He lurches to another boy, who is crying with a hand over his neck. There’s so much blood that Charlie cannot see the entry point of the wound. But it’s too risky, isn’t it? If the boy lifts his hand—even for a second—he’ll bleed out.

The boy begs Charlie, blood bubbling at his lips. “Help me, help me.”

Charlie cannot help him. According to the rules of good triage, this crying boy, one hand on his neck, another clutching his dog tag, is already dead.

“Don’t leave me,” cries the boy.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie says. He scrambles up and away. A plane roars overhead, dropping bombs on the  distant cliffs of Omaha. Each one explodes through the fog in a bloom of fire.

“Don’t leave me!” Charlie can still hear the boy’s voice, crying out for him. “Don’t leave me—please, don’t leave me!”

Who do you save? What rules do you follow?

Did the bullet kill that boy when it sliced through his artery?

Or did you kill him, when you left him all alone?

How would Charlie save mother and child? Do they get to be saved?

If he is a doctor, he should look at the wounds. The mother’s nose is broken, she is concussed, but still breathing. Good breath sounds, no obstruction of airway. Her spine could be compromised, but that’s the type of injury that can wait. She might be paralyzed, but she’ll be alive.

And the child. Oh, the child. Version #91, Charlie wrenches open the back door and climbs into the back. The child is strapped well into a car seat. She cries and cries for her mother. There is no blood, no laceration, no evidence of impact. Whiplash, maybe. The child. Oh, the child. The child is okay. Until the car explodes.

If he is a doctor, Lana requires immediate care. He should leave the mother and child.

If he is a firefighter, maybe he should save the mother and child first, knowing the danger of the car.

(But maybe, knowing the danger of the car impacts the triage too. Maybe the mother and the child are both patients that cannot be saved. Maybe if he is a doctor, he should tag them both with a black tag, which means, in his field, expectant. This is a kind way of saying that soon they will die.)

If he were a superhero, maybe he could figure out how to save them all.  

2. Lottery

Charlie is in the bowels of a sinking ship teeming with screaming bodies. The water is rising, past Charlie’s ankles.  Someone shoves him into a wall. He falls and his glasses fall too. He grabs them and a foot crushes his hand. His yelp is lost in the din of screaming.

The ship creaks all around him. This hulk of metal feels as fragile as an egg, about to crack and let the water rush in. Let the water take them all.

Charlie fights through the bodies. He wiggles and slips through any small opening he can find. He nearly knocks over a screaming child. His heartrate spikes and he instinctively grabs the child’s shoulder to stop them from falling.

The child, in a yellowing nightgown, with wet dark curls clinging around her face, screams at him. The child screams for her mother.

Charlie scrambles, stair after stair—but his path stops. Bars cage him and the mass of poor in. Charlie grabs at the wet and slippery bars.

“You have to let us out!” Charlie shouts, another voice among the crowd. “Please! There are mothers and kids down here!” He shakes at the bars but they do not budge; they care little for mothers, for children, for the pregnant, the weak, the sick, the poor.

The guard stares at him with a face Charlie knows well; he’s scared. He wants to run away. But he just grips at his gun.

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” he barks at them all.

“We’ll all drown,” cries Charlie. Then someone smashes into his shoulder. He slips on the wet stairs and topples down. He smashes his head against the ground and everything goes black.

He feels the water rising around him. The screaming fades into the background like static on a radio. Something else bleeds into his consciousness…a soft voice, familiar and not familiar, cooing to him quietly.

Everything is warm and wet, the water having swallowed Charlie whole. His heart beats quickly though. He’s scared. He’s going to drown and he is so, so scared.

It’s okay, my darling, whispers the woman. I’m here.

On the Titanic, it was money that determined who lived and who died. The rich piled into the life boats, the women and children first, yes, but all of them wealthy. Circumstance and nothing more.

What are the woman and the child’s circumstances? Should Charlie weigh age in his equation? Should the mother die because she is the oldest? Or should the mother live because she must care for the child? Should the child live and Lana and the mother die?

Is one young life worth more than two older ones?

If not age, if not gender, if not money—

If not injury, if not the odds of survival—

Is it most ethical to simply leave it to chance? He could write down those three names. Mother. Child. His friend. Shut his eyes and pick one from the hat.

Let someone else decide.

3. Love.

Charlie wakes up underwater. He floats, face up. Sunlight pours through the top of the water, reaching down to the coral kingdom that stretches to Charlie’s left and Charlie’s right. Everywhere he looks, there is colour. Fish dart around him, streaking toward the mounds of coral and then wiggling underneath, where they disappear.

A current of water pushes toward him. He turns to face it and his eyes widen—it’s a mermaid, a tail twinkling of teal and sapphire. She glides gracefully, her tail moving in gentle strokes. She looks like she’s flying.

From the top of a coral mound, another mermaid peeks up. Her hair floats around her head, each tendril like an arm of an octopus.

The first mermaid darts toward her. The second opens her mouth and flashes a hand sign, then back-flips and disappears.

Charlie watches as the two chase each other. They dart faster than the fish despite their size, turning into streaks of colour: the first mermaid like a brush of teal paint, the second a brush of pink and coral. Soon they are joined by another—then a fourth, and a fifth. When they slow enough, the sun from the top of the water glitter on top of their tails.

When they slow down enough, Charlie sees the face of the first mermaid. Her red hair parts around her long face, features sharp, eyes bright. It is a face he knows.

He gasps. He remembers that face, he remembers this same woman holding the hand of dark-haired Alana, walking her in on the first day of school. “She’s shy,” Alana’s mother had told the teacher. Charlie had heard because Charlie sat up front, because Charlie was shy and quiet too, and so he was invisible.

He was invisible then; he was invisible now, watching Athena flash hand signals toward the other mermaids. But then she turns toward Charlie and flashes something toward him. She touches her chin with her thumb, crosses her middle and index fingers, and makes a swimming motion. Then she beckons with an open palm. Somehow, Charlie just knows: Athena is inviting him to join.

Then she laughs at something the other mermaids must say-- bubbles erupting from her mouth. They dance up toward the sunlight.

Then a shadow moves across the sun and casts the ocean in darkness.

No! Charlie tries to shout. No! He tries to pull himself out of the dream. If he leaves, the tragedy will never strike. The coral kingdom will remain untouched and the mermaids can go on playing.

No! No! No! Charlie thrashes. He screams toward them but he does not know the language of mermaids.

Athena sees him anyway, and the fear twists her face. She looks up toward the bottom of the boat and then slashes her hands quick at the other mermaids.

It all happens so fast after that.

Athena darts toward the cover of the coral. A net slices through the water with a tremendous splash. It opens, and like a greedy hand, it comes toward him. Charlie tries to swim toward the coral too, but the net catches him, it catches several of the other mermaids, and it begins to draw them all towards the surface.

Charlie thrashes in the net with his sisters (are they his sisters? How does he know this?) He claws at the rope-- he knows what will happen before it happens. He sees all these puzzle pieces that he didn’t know existed clicking into place. He weeps.

Athena, who was nearly safe, twists in the water. She streaks toward the net and grabs at the thick rope.

They are face-to-face now: Charlie and Athena. Charlie sees Alana there, in Athena’s determined brow.

Athena draws a sharpened tool from some kind of belt fastened around her waist and cuts at the rope. The net continues to draw the mermaids toward the surface.

“Leave!” Charlie tries to shout. He splashes with a hand. He tries to wave her away. “Go! Swim away!”

But Athena saws at the rope, ignoring him. Her sisters are screaming the same thing: go! Leave us! Go, Athena!

She has just slashed through the rope when the harpoon enters the water. It hits Athena in the middle of her back and slices all the way through her. Blood bursts from Athena’s chest and back. And everything is suspended in the water: the net, her knife still clutched in her hand, Athena, her blood.

Charlie weeps. Athena, with the last of her strength, slashes at the net, and the hole is big enough for Charlie to slip through it.

Then the harpoon drags Athena away. He tries to grab at her tail, but it’s too late. She drops the knife and it spins toward the ocean floor.

A second later, another harpoon cuts through the water and it impales Charlie through the stomach. He doesn’t even have enough time to scream or swim away.

He feels his body go limp. Around him, it happens again and again. Harpoons slashing through tail, back, belly. The blood turns the water murky. There are no more fish playing in the coral. Everything is silent.

Charlie’s vision tunnels, all he sees is red. He cries as the harpoon drags him to the surface and the sun bites into his skin. He cries, thinking that Athena died for nothing.

No one gets away.

Charlie jolts awake and presses his hand against his belly, where the harpoon struck him. No blood pools around his fingers. There is no gaping wound here. But he feels the pain of it anyway. It’s like a third-degree burn, how deep the pain reaches. For a few seconds he cannot breathe, only squeeze out a few shocked tears from his eyes.

There’s another pain too. There are no words for how it twists in his chest. It only makes him think of his own mother, and he begins to weep. He calls out for her.

She’s far away though. Gone, long ago. And soon Charlie stops crying for his own mother and cries instead for Athena, and for Alana—for the little girl who sat with him in the counselor’s office and sucked on her grape popsicle.

And then he thinks of the mother and the child in the car that will strike Alana. He thinks of the mother of the child on the Titanic. He thinks of that soft, kind voice, who comforted him as the water rose. He thinks of Athena, who could have gotten away, but turned back for the sisters—for him. If he could ask any of them, he knew what these women would tell Charlie to do.

Save my baby, Charlie Little. Leave me, and save my little girl.

Is it a sacrifice if no one is saved? If the answer is no, is there value in a sacrifice anyway? Will a sacrifice save your soul?

There is a scenario that no one thinks about. Maybe all of those full-of-themselves philosophers would say it isn’t possible, that it isn’t the point of the thought experiment, but ignore them for a second. Think: there is the runaway trolley, barreling toward the five bodies. There you are, by the switch. Maybe instead of thinking about ethics, you should run for it instead.

Run toward the trolley. Run as fast as you can. Don’t blink and don’t flinch. If you have to, close your eyes right before the trolley takes you.

There’s no saying what could happen if you did that, is there?

[cosmicdvst]

❝My kinds your kind, I’ll stay the same. Back up, don’t stray–they don’t love you like I love you.❞

He doesn’t sit well with hopelessness, in fact, he absolutely hates the notion of it. To be stripped defenseless, torn open at the seams, and finally privy to the ravage of others wills, it drove him striking red. He’s ever only had the single possession in his life, after all; himself. Pity the soul that would ever try to dismantle his being, shards he’d fought to keep together, hands parading the bloody evidence left by such vicious edging; he’s a walking collage of broken things, held together by a coagulating conviction.

What can he do, though, when the soul attempting to pry at his fragments, clutching with little and desperate fingers, looks at him through wide and tormented violet? What can he do when the soul currently thrashing at his legs, pushing and shoving with heated tears, curses him in a voice he can still remember piercing past the walls of his own throat? What can he do when the soul before him, freshly seven years old and pleading at the doors of a cruel fate, is himself?

His heart stutters and for a moment, his chest feels like it might collapse inside of itself, like the dying flares of exploding stars. He’s stood in an old apartment, every last inch doused in unforgivable nostalgia, and he’s staring down at himself; baby boy, the skin and bones of malnourishment, hollowed cheeks and knobby knees, a bird’s nest of wiry and clumped hair, dirt cracked nails and soaked shoes, eyes liquid in globules of tears.

“You have to leave! H-He’s gonna come back, and,” he hiccoughs, sniffling while banging shaking fists against the white armor adorning his legs. “H-he’s gonna be mad at me for letting a stranger in!” There’s a delivered kick towards his shin to punctuate the sentence, but it’s laughably weak. The boy’s a phantom with nothing but the magic of a dream to keep him alive in the midst of an ice age apathy.

Keith’s eyes flicker towards the space of his first home, his last home before the Castle of Lions, and he notes the calendar hanging in the connecting kitchenette. His breath hitches at the date.

Somehow, in between the destabilization of their reality jumping, he’s landed in the past—he’s back on earth, moreover a week after his dad had disappeared without a word or trace. He’s the growing bulk of an epilogue stood before the tragedy of his prologue, and the gaze trembling up at him haunts him with the knowledge of the tale spread bitter in between.

The boy huffs and he feels like his mind is reeling. He hates revisiting this part of his history because the wound had never properly healed, and he’d always thought that it embodied the core of his weakness. Helpless, crying, useless. Staring at himself now, though, from the perspective of an older visage, nineteen pinning seven, he’s struck with everything, the devil and his fine details dug deep into this day. He looks at the boy, at himself, and remembers the fresh fear. The vulnerability of a child abandoned at the depths of an uncaring world, all things familiar shredded from his hands. The unsurmountable loss that dragged leaden behind him, his mother, his father, and the hacking thought; why didn’t they want him?  

What was so monstrous about him that his parents couldn’t be bothered to simply stick around, like everyone else’s?

He remembers having done everything to fix his flaws. He’d ran into his bedroom to finally make his bed, as his father had always requested. He’d gone into the kitchen and ransacked the fridge for their carrots, quickly eating them in an apology for defiantly leaving them behind on his plate during dinners. He’d mopped the floors, done the dishes, dusted mismatched curtains, and he’d bargained with every god a boy could conjure.

He’d stood before the purgatory of his bathroom mirror and cut his hair, scratched at his eyes; he’d change anything for them—just come back.

But they never did. His parents, his father, never came back, and inevitably he was delivered into the false and overworked smiles of a money churning foster system.

It’s almost too much to stomach for a second time.

As it all crashes back in the image of his younger self, though, Keith finds that, maybe, this wasn’t the mount of weakness after all. This moment, he thinks, the titles of Red and Black Paladin stitched into his skin, persistent with galactic victory and his star shined friends, is where he’d simply been reborn—labor had always been hell, hadn’t it?

The road that laid beyond this boy was going to twist at horrifying angles, he’d have to swim oceans of viscous difficulties, he’d battle demons conceived by nearly irrevocable insecurity, but… he’s going to make it.

You’re here—I’m right here.

He’ll see things greater than the perimeters of those who would try to cage him, fly past the limitations of a tepid reality. He’d be cosmic things instead of simply broken, universes of impossibility bursting against the codes of his being. He’d live and fight for celestial magnificence.

He takes a deep breath, a long since denied moistness clouding at his vision behind his visor, and he kneels before the boy. He kneels and shaking arms reach out, encompassing the younger in a firm hug, cradling him close to his chest despite the initial protest.

The boy eventually stops his squirming, relinquishes against Keith’s armor, and cries. It’s a sound that wrenches at his chest, but Keith finally starts; “Ke—” No, not Keith. “Akira.” He corrects after a breathless pause, his lips, for a fleeting moment, feeling as if they might’ve been a Ouija Board, calling to the dead.

The boy, Akira, stills, sniffles and looks up with a puffy and gutted gaze. Keith meets it with something glassy, shaking, but solidified by a strong smile—it’s okay, you’re going to make it.

At his side the Marmoran Blade pulses and it resonates with a realization he’ll have to process later. Luxite manifests in his hands in a light of divine magic.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, something so soft for the fire he’s always been. “No matter what happens you’re gonna be okay. It’s always gonna be okay b-because—” He finally pulls back, throat thick, and holds the dagger between them. In that moment the shape of it creates a bridge that mends all the dark aches of an orphan, represents the triumph of someone who’d taken every damning odd and reconstructed it as a ladder to the stars.

“I love you.” It’s a fragile thing, the first time the three words had been spoken since before he’d even been this younger boy.

He repeats it again, almost winded; “I love you, and that’s enough.” He presses the blade flat to Akira’s chest, holds it there until trembling and lithe fingers wrap along the sheathed metal.

[selfignitingimagines]

Shake It Out Pt. 1

A/N- So this part was originally supposed to be longer, but I had so much written that I just figured you would get to meet Brett in the next chapter. This is going to be a slow burn fic, and please let me know what you guys think of this. Talk to me about the characters, the story, anything! Just message me or leave a comment. 

“And I am done with my graceless heart / So tonight I’m gonna cut it out, and then restart.”

“No! No!” An girl with dark hair  writhed on the floor of the forest, fighting against the hands pinning her down. Fresh, cool earth filled her mouth as she screamed, choking on dirt.. “Mom, no! Don’t-get off of me! Get off! Please-” It was dark, and warm, and a beautifully clear, spring night in the Oregon woods. It was much too beautiful for the scene going on inside of them. Surrounded by dark shapes with no faces, another girl, not much older than the first, was in exactly the same position, except she wasn’t fighting her fate. “This isn’t your fault, Maggie.” Her voice was broken, but accepting, and it did nothing to reassure the other. “No!” the writhing one cried. “No, you can’t-” She cut herself off with her own choked breath, lodging in her throat as the light in the older girl’s eyes suddenly seemed to die. It didn’t take long for Maggie’s screams to come, and as the shapes around them slowly disappeared, she found herself free of the cold hands forcing her down. She scrambled up, darting over to the older girl on the ground. “Maya! Maya, please! Please, you can’t be... I can’t do this. I can’t-I can’t do this on my own.” Her sobs came in short gasps, wracking her body and hollowing her chest from the inside out. She reached out with shaky fingers, not caring that her nails were caked with dirt as she placed her palm on Maya’s cheek. “Please.” A flicker of movement in the older girl’s face caused her to blink, and the wistful ache of hope filled her chest. “Maya?” Her hand suddenly shot up, gripping Maggie’s wrist and yanking her down. She screamed, but she couldn’t break the hold, and soon she was eye to eye with Maya’s colorless face. Her eyes were empty and accusing, and as Maggie would think later, dead.  Maya’s words came out as a sharp hiss, causing any hope Maggie had to shatter into tiny, broken pieces. “This is your fault, Maggie. This is all your fault.”

Maggie jerked upward with a choked gasp, blinking in the light of her half-empty bedroom. Bright sunshine was shining in through the window, letting her know she was long past being on time, and if that wasn’t enough, her phone was vibrating against the nightstand. It was one of the only things left unpacked in her room, but she didn’t plan on taking it. Quinn promised she had furniture, and the more Maggie was able to leave behind, the better. She rubbed her eyes and shoved away the heavy covers, one of the things aside from the nightmare that had caused her to sweat in her sleep. She had been having the same one for the past three nights, and oddly enough, it was coming to her more often now than it had been when Maya first died. She tried to remind herself that the dreams were normal, that it had only been four months, but she knew that it was probably because she was leaving. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to go. She was escaping the terrible things that had happened in this house, but in a way, she was also leaving behind the last bit of Maya she had left- the memories they had made here. Maggie swallowed, set her shoulders, and reached for her phone. It had stopped vibrating seconds ago, but as soon as she snatched it up, it started up again. When she picked up, the first thing she heard was “Shit!” “Uh, hello?” “Maggie, thank god!” a familiar voice cried. “I get that you’re tired, but I’ve been out here for fifteen minutes and I don’t have a key to get into this hellhole. Could you come down and let me in?” “Oh god,” Maggie groaned to herself. “Quinn, I’m sorry. I’ll be right down.” She hung up the phone and jumped out of bed, glancing down at herself. She had fallen asleep in her clothes from the night before, a pair of black shorts and a burgundy sweater, because she had been packing well into the night. She quickly dragged a fresh pair of jeans from an open box and threw them on, then headed into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She didn’t bother with makeup, knowing Quinn was waiting. Then she bounded down the steps and wrenched open the door, only to be slammed into by what felt like a car. When she recovered, stumbling back a few steps, she realized what had hit her was Quinn. Maggie brushed strands of Quinn’s blonde hair from her mouth, and smiled at her aunt, who ran her hands over Maggie’s own hair. “God, I haven’t seen you since you were ten.” Maggie swallowed, remembering all too well the last time she had seen her aunt, which was at her father’s funeral. Quinn pulled back a little, her smile wavering. She was young, younger than Maggie’s mom had been, but she wore the weight of everything she had seen in her expression. When that brilliant smile wasn’t plastered across her face, you could tell that she was much more than just a woman with a pretty face. “I’m sorry, Maggie, about...well, everything. I don’t know if I got a chance to tell you that before. All this death and tragedy, it’s why I left. Maybe if I had stayed...maybe I could have looked out for you girls.” You girls. Quinn was right about the tragedy and death, and at her words, a shard of pain that had been lodged in Maggie’s chest since her father died seemed to dig deeper. Her sister’s death had only made it worse, and, surprisingly, even her mother’s had seemed to knock the wind out of her. “It’s done,” Maggie said softly. “I just can’t be here anymore.” “Of course,” Quinn said softly. “I have some empty boxes outside. Well, I had them before I dropped them all over the porch, just in case you need-” “I’m all packed.” Quinn blinked, looking at her skeptically with the same blue eyes that mirrored Maggie’s. It was a Monnoyer thing. “Everything?” “Everything I need,” she promised. “It’s not much, but you said you had furniture…” “I do,” Quinn assured her. “And don’t worry, if you need something, we can pick it up in Beacon Hills.” “I really appreciate this,” Maggie breathed. “You have no idea how much this means to me.” Quinn reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “You’re family, kiddo...the only decent family I’ve had in a long time. You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you rot in this place.” She peered into the rest of the house, as if she was noticing it for the first time, and Maggie watched as her shoulders stiffened. From the cold look her eyes suddenly took on, Maggie knew she and Maya weren’t the only ones who had made some terrible memories there. “Besides,” Quinn continued, her expression lighting up again. “I need someone else to fill the space in my house. Sampson’s great, but conversation isn’t exactly his forte.” Maggie’s lips turned up. “Sampson? He’s still alive?” “Alive and kicking,” Quinn confirmed. “I’ve never met a more stubborn dog in my life. He might outlive me.” Sampson was Quinn’s twelve-year old German Shepherd, and back when Maggie’s dad was still alive and Quinn would visit, she would always bring him with her. She had never met a dog as loving and sweet as Sampson, and she had never looked forward to being knocked to the ground so much as she had when she was knew she was going to be hit by 75 pounds of dog. “Did you bring him?” Quinn shook her head. “He’s back in Beacon Hills. I had one of Satomi’s kids watch him for a couple hours.” “Satomi?” “I’m her emissary,” Quinn explained. “That’s what you’ve been doing all this time?” Maggie asked, blinking. Quinn nodded, gathering up the boxes she had dropped and tossing them inside the door. Maggie walked out to help her, listening intently as Quinn told her story. “I tried mercenary work for a while after I left Salem. I didn’t have many other skills if you know what I mean. That was what landed me in Beacon Hills, but when I got there, I realized that I’d rather help people than hurt them. I worked as a vet assistant for an older emissary for a while, and when your grandparents died, I inherited one of the houses they owned.” “They had a house in Beacon Hills?” “They did,” Quinn confirmed. “And I never even knew, but I somehow ended up there anyway. Life has a weird way of coming together.” “Yeah,” Maggie muttered. “Tell me about it.” “Anyway, the vet-his name was Alan-introduced me to Satomi. She was living  right outside of Beacon Hills, and she had just adopted a brother and sister whose family was murdered in a house fire.” “House fire…” Maggie murmured. “The Hale House fire?” Quinn shook her head. “That was something different, but Kate Argent probably set this one too. She’s responsible for much more than the media gave her credit for.” Maggie tilted her head. Kate Argent had become a horror story among hunters, one that they told their children to scare them into following the code. Terrible things happen when you stray from the code, she remembered her mother telling her when she was twelve. There are so many different types of monsters, Maggie. Her mother had neglected to mention that she was one too. Every hunting family had a code, and while there were small differences, every one said pretty much the same thing. Maggie doubted that the Argent’s included a provision for setting fire to innocent families. “Satomi took Brett and Lori in after the fire,” Quinn continued. “Brett’s your age, and Lori’s thirteen. They’re great kids, although Brett can be…” Maggie raised her eyebrows as Quinn bit the inside of her cheek. “Well, you’ll see when you meet him. You ready to start packing up?” Maggie blinked, contemplating all the things Quinn could possibly mean by ‘you’ll see’. She didn’t exactly love the idea of walking into something blind, but meeting family friends was a lot different than preparing for a fight. It’s probably not a big deal, she thought to herself. Stop thinking like a hunter, Maggie. “Yeah,” she told Quinn, glancing throughout the house. Her eyes roamed across the walls, where the family pictures had hung before her mother took them down six years ago. They stopped on the stairs, which Maya had dared her to somersault down when she was seven, and broken her arm in the process. Finally, her eyes settled on the bit of the kitchen she could see from the entryway, remembering the way she had leaned against the cabinets, sobbing with Maya’s arms around her as she tried to come to terms with the fact that her father was dead. “Yeah,” Maggie repeated. “I’m ready.”Maggie jogged up the steps, ready to grab the last few boxes from Quinn and load them into her Jeep Cherokee. It was an older car, probably from the early 2000s, but as Quinn had told her earlier “It gets me around.” “Besides,” she added. “I have a Camry too.” Quinn popped her head out of Maggie’s bedroom, which was empty, aside from the bed, the nightstand, and the last two boxes of her things. “Are you sure this is all you wanna take?” “I’m sure,” Maggie assured her. “What about this?” Quinn asked, gesturing to the wall. “Quinn,” Maggie said, her lips tilting up. “I don’t think I need a Twilight poster.” “Oh, so werewolves were off limits, but vampires were free game, huh?” she asked, grinning. “It was a phase,” Maggie said defensively. “Plus, it’s covered in knife marks anyway.” “Edward must have really hurt you if you practiced your throwing on his eyes,” Quinn remarked. Maggie stuck her tongue out in Quinn’s direction and scooped up one of the boxes. She headed out the door and hurried down the stairs, aching to finally leave. She had been nervous for weeks about going to live with her aunt, because even though she had met her, she hadn’t really known her all that well. After Quinn left the hunting game, Maggie’s grandparents had basically disowned her, and the only person from the family who occasionally talked to her had been her dad. After he died, Quinn had given Maggie and her sister her email, and they talked secretly every few weeks. Their mother would have been furious, but she never found out, and when every terrible thing started happening at once, Quinn was there for Maggie. She had wanted an escape, and even though she had only known her aunt from a handful of childhood visits and countless email correspondences, Quinn was ready to offer her one. After all, Quinn had done the same thing, and she had told her that her only regret was that she hadn’t be able to do it sooner. Now Maggie was getting her escape, and for the first time, she felt excitement jolt through her, running throughout her body like electricity. She was getting the chance to be someone else, somewhere else, and the possibilities of what could be were infinite. She crossed through the front door and breathed in the cool, fall air, letting it lift away her fear for a few brief seconds. She bounded down the steps, feeling a small smile curl onto her lips, but as she walked down the driveway, she froze. The cardboard box fell from her hands, thumping on the concrete as she caught sight of the dark SUV parked in front of her house. The figure leaning against it caused her hands to curl into fists and her nails to bite into her palms, and Maggie bristled with rage. Memories flashed through her head, memories of blood, and bruises, and cold hands pinning her down onto the forest floor. “Maggie,” he said, heading toward her. “Stay away from me, Riley,” she spat, her voice shaking. “Maggie, come on-” “I told you never to come near me again,” she snarled, bracing herself as he walked forward. He rolled his dark, green eyes, and continued to walk forward,  not bothered by her threats. They had been friends once, years ago, and at one point she had been grateful they had been born into the same type of life. Riley’s dad was second in command in the large group of hunters that resided throughout Salem. He was a strong guy, and while not as ruthless as Maggie’s mom had been, his cruel tendencies had been passed down to his son. Riley was protective, and dedicated, but when it came to hunting, and especially Maggie, he had always taken things too far. She remembered all the times in middle school when she had to break up fights where he was beating someone into a bloodied pulp, not even because she wanted to, but because the only person he would stop for was her. Everything between them changed after her father died, and Maggie no longer wanted anything to do with the hunters, or Riley, but he had different ideas. He was still hellbent on making her what he thought she should be, and even after the death of her sister, even after what he had done, he just couldn’t let things lie. “Mags,” he said, his voice wounded. “We’re practically family.” “Don’t call me that.” She reached up to shove him away, but he caught one of her wrists and yanked him toward her. “You can’t just leave, Mags. This is your whole life. What are you going to do without this? Without us? Huh?” His fingers dug into her wrist, forceful enough to bruise the skin, and Maggie felt something inside of her snap. She brought her free hand up, slamming her fist into his nose, and reveled at the crack she heard. Riley yelped and let go of her, but as Maggie started to back away, he darted forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. She gasped as her slammed her into Quinn’s car, her back pressing up against the red metal doors. “You can’t leave,” he hissed again, blood dripping from his nose. “You’re a hunter, Maggie. This is who you are.” Maggie felt a shock of fear run through her. Riley had taken things too far before, during training sessions, and that one terrible night four months ago, but never like this. She had grown up with him, with his family, and he wouldn’t have been acting like this unless he was pissed, really pissed. “You were supposed to be the leader,” he continued. “It was supposed to be you, and I was supposed to be your second. It was supposed to be us, Maggie.” She gritted her teeth and shoved against him, her voice dripping with venom. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I was never going to be the leader. I was never going to stay.” “No,” he insisted, his eyes wild and angry. “You were always supposed to stay.” Maggie tried to break away from him, shoving against his chest, his shoulder, but he simply grabbed her wrists and pinned them by her sides. He leaned closer, and Maggie could feel his breath on her face. His shadow swallowed hers in the late morning light, and she hated the way he made her feel-helpless, cowardly, and defeated. “Hey! Get the hell off my niece!” Maggie didn’t hear Quinn’s sharp intake of breath as she stepped out onto the porch or the sound the box in her hands created as it fell into the grass, but she did hear her yell. Riley jumped and looked back, but his grip on Maggie only slightly loosened. She took the opportunity to shove him away, and he stumbled back in surprise as she backed toward the porch. He made a move like he was going to go after her, but Quinn strode down the steps and came to stop by Maggie’s side. “Listen to me, Riley Durand. Stay away from my niece, or I’m going to break something your daddy can’t fix. It looks like she already did.” Riley bristled, but then he took a breath and ran a hand through his light brown hair. He looked away from Quinn, his gaze settling on Maggie. “You know they say that when you run from the past, it splits in two. One part dies, and the other walks with you*.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Maggie asked suspiciously. “You can’t just run away from this. You’ll realize that eventually.” Quinn glared at him, crossing her arms over her chest, and Riley finally backed off. With one last piercing look toward Maggie, he walked back to his car and peeled away from the curb. “That kid seriously needs therapy,” Quinn remarked, glancing over at Maggie. “Are you alright?” Maggie nodded shakily. “Yeah. Thank you.” Without another word, she headed back toward the house. “These are the last ones,” Quinn called, pointing toward the boxes. “I know,” Maggie said. “I just need to do one last thing.”Maggie walked up the steps slowly, running her hand over the wood of the banister. She trailed her fingers along it as she walked up to the second floor, remembering all the times she and Maya had slid down it with fits of laughter echoing around them. That had been a long time ago. As she got to the top, she turned down the hall, but she didn’t go into her bedroom. Instead, she walked past it and headed down to a room at the end of the hall. Her mother had cleaned it out four months ago, almost directly after Maya had died. Maggie remembered how she had screamed when she popped her head in and saw her mom throwing all of Maya’s things into boxes. It had only been three days. Her mother had ignored Maggie’s protests, but decided not to touch the pictures that still hung above Maya’s stripped bed. She reached out to run her fingers over their glossy surface, listening to the soft sound it made in the silence of the empty house. There were pictures of Maya with her friends and with Maggie, some of them from when they were kids, but a few that were recent. Her favorite was from the day Maya had passed her EMT course, and in it Maggie was leaning against her, arms around her sister in her new uniform. It had only been a year ago, but she remembered how happy they had both been, even with everything going on. Maya was the one who had protected her her whole life. She was the one who was right there, through everything, until she wasn’t anymore. Maggie took a deep breath and felt tears pricking her eyes, but she reached forward and snagged the picture from the clothespin Maya had hung it up with. She spared it one more glance, then she tucked it into her back pocket, and headed out the door. 

*Riley’s words here are from a quote by Camille Rankin.

[celebritylive]

As a member of a Hollywood dynasty, Peter Fonda‘s life was filled with triumphs — but the son of screen legend Henry Fonda certainly had his fair share of trauma as well.

For most of his life, Peter, who died on Friday after suffering respiratory failure due to lung cancer, was estranged from his father. Their complex relationship only seemed to worsen in the 1950s when his mother Frances Ford Seymour Fonda tragically died by suicide.

Much of the pain he endured was detailed in his 1998 book, Don’t Tell Dad: A Memoir, and though he once referred to his father as a “forbidding figure,” he eventually reconciled with him before Henry’s death in 1982.

As the second-born child to Henry and Frances, “Peter soon learned that having glamorous parents and luxurious homes in Los Angeles and suburban Connecticut didn’t mean having a storybook childhood,” reads an excerpt from his memoir.

When Peter was 6-year-old, his father sent him to boarding school. For years, Peter viewed the legendary actor, who was remote and often away on set, as a “starchy” man opposed to the “archetypal decent man” the world had come to know in the movies.

RELATED: Peter Fonda Dead at 79 After Respiratory Failure from Lung Cancer: ‘Please Raise a Glass to Freedom’

One of Peter’s earliest memories of his father was when Henry left for the war in 1943 — “I remember the smell of his skin, his rough, unshaven face rubbing mine as he hugged me goodbye,” he wrote — and a particularly more scarring one when he returned to visit his family.

“The night he came back, we gathered in the living room and listened to many stories,” Peter wrote. “After a while, I wandered off to his dressing room to look at the little things that were his ‘personals.'”

Peter shuffled through his father’s watch and dog tags before coming across a bowl of pennies and candies — one of which he took to eat without permission.

“ climbed onto the couch next to him, and he noticed I was sucking on the candy,” Peter recalled in his memoir after returning to the living room. “He asked me where I got it, but the look on his face and the tone in his voice were terrifying.”

“I told him I had just found it. He bellowed that I was a liar,” he continued. “I jumped off the couch and ran for my life with Dad in hot pursuit. I made it into my bathroom, locking the door, but then Dad kicked the door in.”

“He picked me up by my small, terrified neck and carried me into my bedroom, giving me the spanking of my life,” Peter said.

The actor also noted how his father was “embarrassed” by his skinny figure, so much that he would attempt to help Peter gain weight by drinking goat’s milk.

RELATED: Growing Up Fonda

Still, he said, there were bonding moments as Peter recalled how Henry would carve out “a special time for us to have lunch together almost every day while Jane and Pan were at school.”

“We ate sandwiches and drank large beers. I was seven, and having beers with my father was the absolute best, something none of my friends ever got to do with their dads,” he wrote.

Things for their family changed in 1950 when Frances, who was struggling with her mental health, took her own life by slitting her throat while at a nearby mental institution.

A then-10-year-old Peter and 12-year-old Jane were told by Henry that their mother had suffered a heart attack while in the hospital. The Fonda patriarch barely ever mentioned Frances or the tragedy again.

“When I walked toward they told me to go through the closed doors and into the living room. I opened the doors and saw Jane, Grandma and Dad sitting on the couches,” Peter recalled in his memoir. “Jane was on Dad’s lap. I went to Grandma, and she told me Mother had died of a heart attack, in a hospital.”

“After that, no one ever talked about Mom. No one seemed to miss her. It was almost as if she had never lived,” Peter wrote. “Jane and I never went to a funeral or service for her; I didn’t know where she was buried.”

Speaking to PEOPLE in March 2014, Jane recalled how Peter struggled to cope with Frances’ death and “was much more affected by the fact that no one talked about our mom.”

“It was like she’d just been erased,” Jane said. “, Peter filled a chair with presents and a letter for her. He couldn’t stand that there was no acknowledgment of her. He was such a sensitive, sweet, vulnerable kid.”

Ten years after their mom’s death, a 20-year-old Peter finally learned what happened to her while chatting with a local diner owner in Fishkill, New York, where he had been apprenticing a summer stock theater that summer.

“The owner of the local diner, a man with whom I’d chatted all summer, sat down next to me at the bar. He pulled out his wallet and removed a yellowed newspaper clipping,” Henry recalled. “My eyes were perfect in those days, and I saw the same photograph of my mother that had been in The New York Times for my birth announcement, but the copy was very different: Frances Seymour Fonda, wife of the actor Henry Fonda, committed suicide yesterday at the Craig House, a posh asylum in Beacon, New York.”

Of the revelation, Peter said he “was stunned. I sat there for two or three minutes, speechless … Everyone else knew. Knew everything! But not me.”

RELATED VIDEO: Jane Fonda Opens Up About Her Mother’s Suicide: ‘It Has A Big Impact On Your Sense of Self’

To help cope with the bombshell, Peter threw himself into work and began acting in films, including Tammy and the Doctor, The Victors, Ulee’s Gold, The Hired Hand, The Trip, and 1966’s Wild Angels, opposite Nancy Sinatra and Bruce Dern.

His breakout role, however, came in 1969 when he starred as Wyatt in Easy Rider, which he also produced and co-scripted. For his work on the project, Peter earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Around that time, a then-married Peter “dove headlong into the era’s sea of drugs and sexual freedom,” which eventually led to his 1972 divorce from first wife Susan Brewer, whom he shares daughter Bridget Fonda and son Justin Fonda with.

Three years later, Peter married Portia Crockett. While living in Montana with Crockett and her son Thomas, Peter reached out to his father by offering him a role in the 1979 film Wanda Nevada.

Henry accepted, and the pair began to mend their broken relationship, with Peter even making a point to tell his dad he loved him at the end of their conversations — something that he rarely ever heard from Henry.

Then one day, after Henry and Peter spent the afternoon together, the elder Fonda started to cry on his way out the door.

“Slowly and choking on the high-powered emotion, he said, ‘I love you very much, son. I want you to know that,'” Peter wrote in his memoir.

“I hugged him so hard, I could feel the pacemaker in his chest. Tears streaming down my own cheeks, I told him I loved him very much and kissed him on his lips. Something we had never done before,” he continued. “I quickly drove off, stopping at a nearby park to have the good hard cry I needed. Years of frustration fell off my heart like melting snow sliding off a roof.”

Unfortunately, the father-son duo only had two years to enjoy their newly reconciled relationship before Peter received a gut-wrenching call from his dad’s wife Shirlee Mae Adams telling him that Henry was in the hospital in critical condition.

After arriving at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in 1982, Peter and Henry shared one of their final moments together — and the younger Fonda heard something that he had waited all his life to hear.

“Dad lay in his bed, very weak. At about ten o’clock, he opened his eyes and looked around the room,” he recalled. “He stared at Shirlee, opening and closing alternate eyes as if to find focus … and then he looked at me, pinning me with both of his beautiful blue eyes.”

“‘I love you so very much, son. I want you to know that.’ And he closed his eyes and lay his head back on the pillow,” Peter wrote. “These were the last words he spoke before he died.”

“I went back to the ranch, satisfied that I had parted with my father in a very pure way,” he added.

The Fonda family confirmed to PEOPLE in an exclusive statement that Peter died on Friday at age 79 after suffering respiratory failure due to lung cancer.

“It is with deep sorrow that we share the news that Peter Fonda has passed away,” the family said. “ passed away peacefully on Friday morning, August 16 at 11:05 a.m. at his home in Los Angeles surrounded by family.”

“In one of the saddest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our hearts. As we grieve, we ask that you respect our privacy,” they wrote.

“And, while we mourn the loss of this sweet and gracious man, we also wish for all to celebrate his indomitable spirit and love of life,” the family finished. “In honor of Peter, please raise a glass to freedom.”

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “home” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

from PEOPLE.com https://ift.tt/2KBwNtK

[augustawren]

A Mother’s Love

Characters: Faye, the twins, Wren

Universe: Broken/Fang AU

Faye ran her finger down the embossed leather spine of the book she held. She knew her dads didn’t like for her to read it, they thought she should wait till she was older… But how could she wait, knowing there was a book full of her mother’s memories, written in mother’s own voice, right under the same roof? She hugged it to her chest and tucked her feet underneath her, leaning back against the pillows on her bed. It wasn’t the first time she had read the book. Or even the second. She felt she must have read it a hundred times by now, under her covers with a meckanical light, pouring over the words, every one so precious to her.

She could remember her mother writing this book. She remembered the pages spread out around her in bed, some resting on her big, pregnant tummy. She remembered being frustrated when she couldn’t climb into the bed because the parchment was arranged in a specific order, and it was important to Mommy to finish something.

She had no idea how much she would come to treasure these pages. The last words her mother would ever speak, and they would continue being spoken long after she had passed. 

The unfairness of her mother’s death still hit her sometimes. Still made her angry. Her mother had only been twenty-seven when she’d died. It was unspeakably cruel that they had had so short a time together. Faye had been five when she’d died, but her mother had been nonverbal and mentally absent for four of those years. She’d loved her mother very much, regardless, but hadn’t truly gotten to know her until later, and then… Well, they had had much too short a time. It was why reading this book was so special to her. There were parts that felt like they were written directly to Faye.

She had wept the first time she’d read the book, and several times after. She had learned some unflattering things about her mother, but overall, she learned of her mother’s strength. She learned about just how much she had endured. She wondered if, in her short life, she’d ever had more than a year’s worth of happiness total. It never seemed to be consistent. She would have a few months here, a week there, but tragedy always struck. After reading the book, she had forsaken Yondalla for a time. She was so bitter that the goddess could let her mother hurt so much, that she could give her such a horrible life, and then take her away so soon. She knew Aunt Blaise had tried a miracle to bring her mother back, but that it had been refused. That Yondalla herself had refused to let Wren return to them.

Faye hated Yondalla for months, which interfered with her studies greatly. How was she supposed to learn from Gwen, the priestess, when she had so much anger? She had so many questions about her own identity, and no one had answers for her. No one wanted to talk about her conception, or could offer her any comfort. Except for her mother. And it was these words that she sought again at that moment.

Faye cracked open the book, breathing in the smell of it, and turning to a passage right before the end, that she had marked.

“After hearing this story, it’s likely a question has arisen in your mind. If I could, would I change it? I’ve told you a tale of torture and pain. I’ve told you about my darkest moments. I’ve told you about the depths of depravity that exist in the sickest of minds. How could I not want to change it, you might think. I imagine my daughter asking herself this question. For I imagine she will want to read this one day. She will be curious, she will have heard stories, she may by now even have some grasp as to her origins, and I cannot fathom how painful that must be for her. I can see her, always one to worry over the pain of others, wishing herself out of existence, wishing that the terrible things that happened to me had never happened. I can see her asking herself over and over again, if I could, would I change her? Knowing what I know now, would I turn back time and stop it all from happening? My answer from the bottom of my heart, my soul, my being, will always be the same.

Never.

There is nothing in my life brighter than her. Nothing in the heavens above that shines as brilliantly as her. She is the light of my life, my little love. Yondalla sent my daughter to me when I needed her the most. In my darkest hour, when I was the most lost I’d ever been, she was sent to me like an angel and I will always treasure her above all else. She is the most precious gift.

This is the part where I say something about how it’s our strength in overcoming the shit life throws at us that makes us who we are. And I think that’s true. Yes, I spent most of my life wishing the things that happened to me hadn’t happened. Pain sucks. But who would I be, then? A far different version of myself. I would not, in fact, be me at all. Who is Fayri Underhill, a young innocent girl from the Rillands? 

Everything that has happened has all led me here, to this moment, sitting in bed writing these words, feeling the twins in my belly kicking, listening to my daughter squeal with laughter as her Daddy Devlin and Daddy Widget chase her around the house, with her Aunt Blaise playfully scolding the men for running indoors, the sounds of a pack of dogs scrabbling after them all. This is my life now. It’s not fighting monsters or saving the world, but it is my greatest adventure yet.”

Faye’s eyes filled with tears the way they always did when she read this. She could hear her mother’s voice, feel her mother’s hand, stroking her hair. She was warm, and at peace. No matter what kind of monster her father had been, Faye was not him. But she had her mother’s strength, and her mother lived on, in her heart.

She twisted the white streak of hair behind her ear and chewed at the side of her lip the way her mother always had. Ten years later and it was still hard to accept that Wren was really gone. There were so many times that she wanted her mother to talk to. Aunt Blaise was wonderful, and always acted as a mother to her, but… There were sometimes when she just wanted Wren, and the pain of knowing she would never have her was almost too much.

Faye closed her eyes tightly and clasped her hands.

“Momma,” she whispered. “Momma, if you can hear me… I could really use some advice.” She hesitated. Maybe it was a silly thing to talk to her mother about, but it was something on her mind and... well, there was no one else she wanted to talk to about it. “There’s um, there’s this boy, and…”

There was some giggling from outside her door and Faye’s eyes shot open. She jumped out of bed and wrenched open the door.

“Get out of here!” she screamed at the twins who were already trying to scramble away. Devin, his brown hair short and straight, with one tufft of white in the front, looked immediately apologetic. He hugged his skinny arms and hung his head, while his twin, Elora, was still giggling. Nearly twice the size of tiny Devin, Elora stood with her hands on her hips, her wild, messy brown curls tossed over her shoulder. She scrunched up her freckled nose at Faye.

“So who’s the booooy?” she asked.

Faye screamed in frustration and slammed the door on them.

Resting her back against the door, she suddenly felt a cool breeze across her face. She closed her eyes and smiled. It smelled like lavender and honey. The pages of the book, left open on her bed, rustled, turning back several pages.

Faye cocked her head and went over to the bed and looked down at the book.

“I will never forget the first time I saw her. There’s not much I can say I remember from those years after Fang’s second attack, but seeing Faye… That I’ll remember for all eternity. She was so beautiful. Her pudgy little belly, her perfect fingers and toes. She was red and squalling, but she was so perfect. She almost instantly quieted in my arms. She was perfect in every way. She looked up at me with eyes that would change to be the color of my very own hazel, and I was overcome with love. If I hadn’t already been speechless due to trauma, a certainly would have been struck speechless then. Nothing had prepared me for how much I would love her. Always and forever, my little love. My love for you will never die.”

Faye choked on more tears and bit her lip. “I love you too, Mom,” she whispered. “I love you too.”