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Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes, or Nana. They are property of the Great Tim Kring, and humble Yazawa-sensei, respectively. I do however, own the video that is posted on Youtube, under my account (mayanangel), so the same way I hope no one steals this little ditty I wrote in the middle of the night while some dude is downstairs yelling at his wife (I think), I hope no one steals the vid either. I'm just a poor, unemployed, under-grad.
AU fic, and companion piece for the same-titled, short-vid on my Y-tube account. Based on the song a little pain by Olivia 'inspi' REIRA, off the Nana Anime OST. A really great, heartfelt song. Unfortunately, my vid (my first, actually) says little, so I drummed up this fic after pondering my own vid the hundredth time. Yep, my own mind puzzles me. The whole thing explains almost in detail, the meaning of every clip I used, but they're arranged like the vid itself, which is out of sync. The whole point is to arrange them yourself. Anyway, onwards!
No Need, To Cry
- She was tired of holding on to things that were half-truths and cheap lies. She wanted something real. She wanted what was right, and rightfully hers. Waiting, for that reason not to cry.-
She was running. Running for her life. The man who killed Jackie was behind her. She could feel it. The heavy presence, the cruel footsteps. He was close. He was after her.
She stopped, as the voice called out to her. She turned, facing the stranger who had helped her escape the killer. He gazed intently, asking her the weirdest question.
"Are you the one? Did I save the world by saving you."
She felt her heart fall, her guts plummet. Not you too, she thought. Not another one. She thought there was only one person out to get her because of her difference. She felt the blood drying between her fingers, and wished against her head, that this savior wasn't another liar.
Her eyes filled with tears, at least as much as she allowed herself to show, and she shook her head.
"No. I don't know. I'm just a cheerleader."
And then she was gone.
She sat on the stone bench, watching the world pass by with their own problems, their own issues, and their own hopes and dreams. In that crowd alone, she could pinpoint ten girls who were probably the same age, the same hair tone, and possibly the same as her when it came to their life and family.
Still, she knew she wasn't like any of them. She was strange. She was different. She wasn't human.
She had cried to the man whose life she had saved, pouring her heart and soul, lamenting the tragedy of her existence, when he reminded her that it was her, her abilities, that had saved him in the first place.
She couldn't find the strength to embrace it. Tears streaking down her warm, apple cheeks, she spoke the one question that remained in the back of her mind. Remained, and suppressed, for so long; ever since she found out the truth from her father.
"If I'm not a freak, then why doesn't my Dad want me?"
He was silent at that, looking away from the young blonde.
He wondered if he should tell her the secrets his new friend Hiro Nakamura, had told him when he warned him about his brother.
She was sick of the lies. Sick of the consequences. She demanded her rights. She had to. She needed to.
Her only friend was gone, not in body but in mind - and that was worse than death. She was sick of it, sick of losing things all because she was seemed unworthy of them.
"Give him back." She had threatened, she had begged. Still, the dark man could only stare at her blankly, almost patronisingly.
"No," he spoke,"Your father would never allow it."
"My father is a liar," she gritted, knowing her request was going to go unheard. The least she could do was gain this one consolation. This one chance to speak her anger. She felt a tear run down her cheek, knowing how the words would hurt to admit, even as she was thinking of them anyway. She gazed at the dark man.
"I hate him."
She thought the worse was over. She thought she had managed to buy them time, or at least a small victory and the chance to savour it.
She was wrong. It was far from over.
They had stopped on a bridge, overlooking a ravine with a faint, silver, line below. It was higher than the water tower. Much, much higher.
He explained what was going to happen. She wanted to stop him, but it was clear, even to her, that it was the only way.
She begged, still. She pleaded for him to change his mind.
He smiled, a smile she used to smile in return to, because it meant that he was going to give her happiness. She couldn't find the strength to smile back.
After the shot rang, and she embraced him with all her heart, she told him stubbornly that she loved him still, crying painfully in the back of her throat. She decided at the last moment to not speak the words in the pit of her heart.
'You weren't my dad. You didn't have to do this.'
From the distance that separated them, she had seen him. She saw him everywhere, actually. On the walls, on the taxis lazily making their way through the city, and on the pavements, dirty and rumpled. She was shocked, surprised.
But most of all, she felt like she was determined to not lose sight of him.
Like a hand of God leaning down from heaven, on that very moment, she saw the taxis stop, the wind die and the air clump. She saw it, like a carpet layed out before her. The pathway to him.
She ran, hoping to catch him in time. Hoping to be in front of him, hoping to be proven wrong. She lost him once. She let him go once.
She couldn't do it again. Not a third time.
She rose up before him, sixteen and in her school cheers. He stepped out of the doors, as regal and as respectable as she remembered him to be. For a moment, she dared to hope that he was there to see her.
She was close. She was near. She could tell that he was breathing.
But the look in his eyes, so like the friend she had lost long ago, was heartbreaking. She knew, she just knew.
He was back. He was here.
But he was gone. He wasn't there, he wasn't him. He was gone. Gone in every way.
She bowed her head, and turned, disappearing into the sea of cars.
She thought she had no choice. She thought that this final action was all that stood between every breath and the next. She was sure, that the same way her father proved that once the ball started rolling, the only way to stop it was by letting it go, she was sure this final task was what was needed to stop the cycle of madness.
She held the gun to her once-upon savior, ready to cross the line her father so adamantly hoped she never knew existed. She was two steps away, from filling in that coloring book behind her eyes, with shades of grey, black and white.
Then he had fallen from the sky, like a Messiah from the heavens to help her find her way. He told her, with eyes that were so alike to every man, woman and child that ever believed in hope, that there was another way.
She felt like crying, felt like dying. She was a child, but she wasn't stupid. She knew what was going to happen.
As he gently put her hand, trembling around the steel of the gun, gently away, she wanted to stop him. She wanted to say that this didn't have to happen.
Instead, he turned to his brother, resolution upon his face, and left the image of his back turned, as the final goodbye to her.
As the sky burned from gold, to red, to blue and white, she grasped the arms that appeared out of nowhere to hold her, and cried her eyes out. Cried her heart out.
She wanted to scream.
'You were my father. You had to do this. And I hate you for it.'
She found her way to the home, after losing so much and taking so little. She found it, as cold and white as the lies she learned to live with.
She heard from her grandmother. As cold as she was, she was good enough to let her know.
He was dead. Her savior was dead. She wanted to say goodbye.
He had been there when she was in danger, an entire lifetime ago it seemed, on one particular day she recalled as 'Homecoming'. When the sky had burned, she thought they were now tied down by fate. But then, she had thought they had all escaped fate when he came back from the abyss, just two days later, but she was wrong. He came back, but he was only half the man he once was.
Still, he kept fighting.
And now, he was dead.
She wanted to say goodbye. This time, she wasn't going to leave or let go until she did.
And, he was there. He was alive. Somehow it didn't surprise her. He came back for his brother. He came back for his family. Not her.
She came through the door, and he turned to her. He cradled his baby brother, and she found a strange courage in her chest. A strange familiarity. Calmly, she asked for a chance to help. She and he were alike. There could still be a chance out there.
He stared at her, unwillingness clear in his eyes. But realising, perhaps, that fake hope was better than none at all, he let her try.
He laid his brother down, then left. It was still the easiest thing to do.
Coughing, gasping. He turned, and saw the glass in her hand, and his brother alive, breathing. His mother ran to embrace her son. He could only stand in the hall, pursed up, and eyeing her quiet, calm and accepting demeanor.
Even when she was in the presence of all this craziness, she was just innocent.
There was no way she was his daughter.
He needed to explain to her. To tell her why he was back. Why he didn't come back for her. And why it seems he did, after all.
He was a bad person. Even he, knew that. He watched his own growth as much as his parents, and his brother. He had left a lifetime of troubles behind when he saved the world once, but this time he was going to fix them. He was going to be better. He deserved, he owed himself, to be better.
But she, she only wanted a chance to be his daughter, to be his child. He was her father. She was his child. They were family. They should be happy. The world for her was so flawed, and so broken. Everything anyone tried to fix, was put back together with cheap glue and poster paint; shouldn't it be just right if the one thing that actually fit, that actually made sense to her and to everyone else out there, whether alike her or not, was happy?
Wouldn't it? Shouldn't it? She was his daughter, he was her father. Shouldn't that be enough?
"I want to be there for you."
She would have smiled then, but she was too jaded to even try. She already felt her lashes grow heavy.
"But I can't."
She nodded, the scoff stuck in her throat. Of course.
"Of course." It was understanding, but she wanted it to be sarcastic. It would be fitting. Instead, she felt that sob mingle within the words, and she couldn't say it well. So she said it with understanding.
As he embraced her, her real father, and the same cloth she was cut from, she felt the fears rise in her chest.
He was distant, he wasn't real. He was already drifting away from her.
Once upon a time, she had lost a father, because of who she was. She was different. Because she was his daughter.
You leave the people you love. You leave to protect them.
If he loved her, he would leave. If he loved her, he would protect her. If he loved her, she would lose him. And if he didn't...
She didn't care anymore. She needed this love. She needed this protection. She was tired of wishing for something to go right in her life. This, this was the closest to perfect she could ever get. She wanted it. She deserved it.
She was going to take whatever kind of life this revelation of sorts was bound to give her, because it was borne out of what was right. Fathers should be with their daughters. That was nature's law. She knew where this was bound to lead, but she was going to hold on to it until he left again, until she lost her life again. This time, there was no need to cry. She already knew what was at the end of this road, so she was ready. She was prepared for the end.
But until then, she was content with his promise. He promised he would be there for her, someday. That was good enough. She'll take it. And wait, though she knows it won't happen. She knows that.
She took a deep breath.
There was no need to cry.