DISCLAIMER: I don't own House of Anubis.

IMPORTANT: Character death. Can be dark in some areas.

The call came last night. 9:36 P.M. Patricia picked up her phone as she usually did, flipped it open as she usually did, and pressed it to her ear.

She wishes she hadn't.

Maybe if she hadn't, her twin wouldn't be dead. It was stupid to think that though, Piper was already in the hospital and already hooked up to the life support machine. It would've been at least an hour later that her mum had called her and told her. And by then, Piper was dead. No parting words, no sense of closure.

A sense of emptiness overwhelmed her as Patricia looped the tie around her neck. She did this every day, every morning, same routine, same schedule.

Piper wasn't even part of this.

But everything in this room made Patricia think of her.

She had cried herself to sleep last night, after escaping the Sibuna meeting. At first all she felt- could feel, actually- was disbelief. This couldn't be happening.

Then anger. The want, no, need, to destroy everything and everyone because they were all just bastards for being so goddamn naïve, not knowing that someone had just died and they didn't care. How dare everyone just go on with their lives?

And then finally came the overwhelming sense of grief, the one that led to smudge makeup and ripped up photos of two girls dressed the exact same. Her eyes had been swollen and puffy and Patricia was careful to put the right amount of makeup on this morning. She didn't want anyone to know, in a way. All she wanted was for them to be affected.

Today, she didn't feel anything. As if overnight, she had shut down. A part of her was missing. A vital piece in the puzzle.

It actually felt okay, not to feel those things she felt last night, because it had hurt so badly.

It was as if the anger had dissipated and the tears dried out. She felt nothing except mild bitterness. Towards everyone. Because Piper was dead. And they didn't care. Everything was sucked out of Patricia, every bit of life she possessed. All she felt was the emptiness. It wasn't a good feeling, but it wasn't the extremes she had last night.

"Morning, Patricia," Willow chirped as Patricia entered the dining room. Oh, great, now everyone in the room was looking at her- Eddie looked concerned.

Patricia merely nodded at her before taking her seat next to Eddie, ready to brace the inevitable questions.

"You okay?"

No. I'm not okay.

"Fine." She picked at her food. Why should she eat? Piper couldn't eat. She dropped the pancake and stood up, grabbing her bag.

"You're not eating? Do you want me to come with you?" Eddie glanced up, worry etched on his face. Any other day, she would've found it cute if not slightly annoying that he was this perceptive and caring. But today?

No. If you come, I won't be alone. And that's what I need. To be alone. I don't want to think.

Shrug. Eddie furrowed his eyebrows in some kind of attempt to decipher the signals Patricia was giving him before looking back at his uneaten stack of pancakes.

Go on. Choose the pancakes over me.

And he did. KT, Fabian, and Alfie's eyes followed her to the door, and Patricia briefly flashed to Alfie. Alfie and Piper had something going on. How would he feel?

He'll get through it.

And with that last thought, she swung open the door and readjusted the bag on her shoulder.

Walls. No one could break them.

Sympathetic glance meant Mr. Sweet knew. How, she didn't know. Her mum probably called him to go easy on her. He didn't pick her in science class, and she remained unresponsive for the most part.

It was almost as if he expected Patricia to break down in the middle of his science class, screaming profanity and tearing up.

No.

Walls, walls, walls. Emotions under check. No emotion felt. No hurt felt. It was a chain.

She had done her tears last night.

Now they were over and done with, and she didn't need anybody's stupid pity.

Not Eddie's, who kept looking over at her concernedly when he thought she wasn't looking. But she had peripheral vision just like him, and she knew he would confront her at some point.

KT and Fabian's eyes dug holes into her back, but she didn't care. She couldn't bring herself to care. Alfie kept casting her worried glances from across the room, surprising her- he might not have been unknowing as he appeared. Unspoken questions hung in the air like a heavy fog.

She tries a drink for the first time that night.

Maybe that could get rid of this emptiness.

She doesn't even know how she got there, at that lonely bar on that Thursday night. The bartender didn't ask for her age- she was one year under legal drinking age, but hell, it's not like it'd make much of a difference.

She drank until her insides were fuzzy and room blurry. She drank until her sorrows were forgotten and all that was left was slurred words and incomprehensive surroundings.

A figure comes to pick her up later that night. She doesn't remember much more.

And for that, she's glad.

"You were drinking last night," Eddie accused quietly, following her to her room after another dreary day at school. Massive hangover and her head hurt. She had been downing aspirin more frequently than water, and Eddie had certainly noticed. His eyes darted around the bedroom even though Mara was staying after school, "We're underage! What were you thinking? We were all so worried…"

Yeah, right.

Maybe this is why Patricia thought she should've been the one to die. Piper was some kind of blessed angel, gifted and perfect and radiating goodness. Patricia was the bad one- she always had been and always would be. She should've died. No one would've cared if she died. Patricia deserved to die.

"Yacker? C'mon, yack," Eddie came closer to her and looked at her the same way he had been for the last couple days now. Wonder. Concern. Worry. Curious. She hadn't talked since Wednesday night.

And that honestly scared him.

She shook her head slowly and averted her eyes, fixing on a picture on her nightstand. Piper and her. In the blur of things the last couple days, that photo had remained intact, not yet subject to her scissors.

The anger came surging back, but it wasn't towards the living today. No, Piper was her victim right now.

She left me. She left me. She didn't say goodbye. Selfish.

It wasn't fair for Patricia to regard her like that, and in her subconscious, she knew it.

But she couldn't help it.

"What's wrong?" Eddie followed her line of vision to the photo. "Piper? Did you guys have a fight or something?"

More like she left me.

"Yacker?" Eddie shook her shoulder. Feelings, they were resurfacing. Patricia almost felt bipolar at this rate.

Grief hit again.

She's gone. She's gone and she's not coming back. She's never coming back.

Maybe if I had just let her stay at Anubis, this wouldn't have happened.

Maybe if we just talked more, this wouldn't have happened.

Maybe if I had just told her I love her before she went….

"She's dead," Patricia croaked out, voice dry and raspy from days of no use. "She's gone and she's not coming back. She's. Not. Coming. Back." A few tears slipped down her face, but right now, she couldn't care less. Didn't she have a right to feel this way?

Eddie paused for a minute. Piper was gone. While the two hadn't talked much, anyone you know being dead is never a fun thing.

"I'm so sorry," he breathed out.

"No, you're not!" Tears streamed down her face as she shouted at the top of her lungs, and she realized, this was it. Patricia Williamson was actually crying, full out sobbing. "You didn't know her! She was my sister! I loved her! And I'll never get to see her again and I'll never talk to her again and I'll never be with her ever again!" The sobs racking her body were practically choking her now, and he awkwardly patted her back lightly. Her voice dropped, "I didn't get to see her. I won't get to see her ever again." He pulled her into a hug that any other day she would've repelled from. Today it was wanted, welcomed.

"I should be the one dead," she choked out, burying her face in his shoulder, tears wetting his shirt.

"Shh, Patricia. Don't say that," he stroked her hair comfortingly. Honestly, he was winging it, but it seemed to be working.

"Just shoot me," she murmured into the material of his shirt. "Somebody just shoot me so Piper can come back." She let out a bitter laugh, muffled by Eddie's shirt, "It's a life for a life, isn't it?"

"What?" Eddie raised an eyebrow at her behavioral change. "What are you talking about?"

"Life for a life," she choked out, an overwhelming sense of drowsiness overcoming her. But she was not ready to come out of the safe haven that had been found in his arms. "Tipping the scales of life." She yawned, her headache drifting back.

"Are you drunk again?" Eddie asked softly. "What about Piper?"

"Piper's not gone," Patricia said, voice wavering as her eyes drooped. She was in a sleepy daze, "She's still here." Denial.

"Patricia," Eddie spoke softly, he didn't want to remind Patricia Piper was dead, but he couldn't let her carry on like this either. "Piper died."

But Patricia had already fallen asleep.

Tomorrow it would be the same routine. Morning brought emptiness and night brought back everything she was trying to suppress.

Patricia had Eddie tomorrow though.

She would never really get over it. She would still cry about it sometimes when nobody was looking. She wouldn't get closure until she attended Piper's funeral one day.

It would be such a nice ending if Piper did come back somehow, whether through Egyptian tears or resurrection by other means.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Sometimes, Patricia thought so. But then she backtracked. The dead were the dead, and they were not to be awakened again. It would happen to everyone eventually. Piper just died earlier than the rest.

And Patricia cracked a bitter smile because only the good die young.

Piper was always the good one.

A/N: I would've posted this on 'Erasing Cliches' but then it seemed as if it was more Patricia centric than Peddie,so I let it stand alone. I hope you liked it- I would love some opinions on this since it's something I've never tried with the HoA fandom.

So...bye...