Title: One Last Thought

Author: Azura Nyx

Characters: Daisy Adair, Maximilan Young (OMC)

Type: Angst/Sci-Fi/Betrayal

Length: ~840 words, one-shot

Warnings/Author's Notes: These characters are property of MGM, and I do not own them. In this fic, there are spoilers from "Vacation" and "Be Still My Heart."

Rating: PG

Summary: A story of the events of Daisy Adair's death and her thoughts during her time of dying.

One Last Thought

Chapter 1

In Daisy Adair's first year of relocating to the External Influence division, Rube had showed George a painting from an art book. The painting was of a very beautiful, sad- looking woman with blonde hair. Georgia recognized this woman, however, because she had said:

"She reminds me of Daisy."

The woman in the painting who appeared to be very melancholy was indeed the actress: Daisy Adair. So many things Daisy mentioned in casual conversation had alluded to the idea that she led a perfect life; men being crazy about her, never really lacking any roles in plays or film, being rather famous as well as successful, and enjoying every moment of her life up until her last days on Earth. But was this all true? Did the great actress of "Gone with the Wind" really have that great of a life after all?

It was a beautiful day for shooting a film in Marietta, Georgia on December 13, 1938: the sun gave off the perfect amount of natural light for filming. Daisy was in her dressing room, sitting by her make-up mirror practicing her lines when her boyfriend at the time, Maximilian Young (who also happened to be an actor working on the set of "Gone with the Wind"), barged into her room.

"Who the hell do you think you are," Max angrily exclaimed.

"E-excuse me," a confused Daisy inquired.

Increasing his tone volume quite a bit, Max answered, "Don't play dumb with me, you whore! Didn't I tell you not to bother me late at night?"

"Yes, but you also told me yesterday that you wanted to run through your lines with me around 9 tonight. When you didn't show up, I called you to see if you were okay because you don't generally miss our rehearsals."

"Yeah? Well, thanks to you, my wife knows about us now. She's furious: even threatened to divorce me."

"Is that so? Then maybe you should have thought of that before we decided to have an affair."

Max hurriedly walked towards Daisy, and then back-hand slapped her across the face so hard that she fell back and landed on to the floor. As tears flowed down her cheeks, she held her hand where Max struck her and peered up at him.

"How can you love me when you hurt me like this," Daisy commented as she stood up from the floor. "You're always telling me how much you love me, but then you hit me. So, which is it, Max?"

"Well…," he pretended to be thinking about how to reply to Daisy's inquiry. "Let's just say this, my sweet Daisy: we can't see each other anymore. I can't risk my name being soiled in the newspapers because I made the foolish mistake to sleep with you. You're an actress, after all. So, I'm sure you understand the concept of public opinion." Max kissed Daisy on the forehead, and continued by saying, "Good-bye, darling."

Max left the room, shut the door, and then lit a match. He dropped it on the ground by the room and, once he left the building, it didn't take long for the flames outside Daisy's room to accumulate.

As Daisy was running through her lines, she began to cough rigidly. She didn't understand what was causing her to do this until she happened to see smoke fuming up from beneath the door. Instinctively, Daisy went over to the door and tried to open it, but there was such a tremendous amount of heat that it was impossible to do so. Therefore, she tried her only other option, which was to open the window to escape. But when she tried this method, the window wouldn't budge. Daisy knew that if she had any chance of survival, then she would have to get out soon. Frantically, she tried the window again, but it didn't move an inch.

Daisy began coughing once again as she thought, "It's no use. There's nothing I can do."

The oxygen levels were lowering extensively now as Daisy waited for her death. Her life was flashing before her eyes when she sat down on the bed and cried. She knew Max was cruel to her physically, but she never thought he would go this far. Daisy never dreamed that he would be her murderer. After all, Max appeared to be kind, sweet, generous, and even loveably humble when she first met him. Even so, the man was an actor and, evidently, a pretty damn good one at that. Any woman Max would entice could be easily fooled by him.

"How could I have been so stupid? Why did I get involved with him?"

It was only a matter of seconds now before the flames exploded and completely took over the building. The last thing Daisy thought before she lost consciousness and died was, "Why has no one ever loved me?"