Violet didn't die, and the Harmons stayed in the house. Viven miscarried the twins and Hayden left them alone for a little while, and life drifted on as it always did.
()()()
Prom was a dreadful thing, all these ugly girls in ugly dresses and normal boys wanting to dance with them.
Tate told Violet about his prom, about how his mother made him go junior year and everyone was all over each other, hands up the girls dresses and dragging boys towards the bathroom. He never went to his senior prom though, for obvious reasons.
Violet came into the room one night, the one she shared with Tate now. She'd been late coming home from school, and in her hand she carried a big white bag.
"What's that for?" He asked, pulling his earphones out.
"Prom," She grinned. "Want me to try it on for you?"
"Sure," He said, pretending not to care. "I thought you said you weren't going?"
"I changed my mind when I saw this dress," She said. "Here, zip it up for me?"
He obliged, his fingers trailing down the narrow of her back as he did.
She spun to look at him, and his eyes lit up. She looked so beautiful.
The dress was tight all the way down to her calves, where it flowed out. It was violet up top, like her name, and it transcended into a white down by her feet, completed with a violet sash at her waist. He'd never seen her look so beautiful, and yet he knew that she wasn't his.
She would wear that dress while she danced with some other boy, while he took her back to his house and made love to her-and then she would come back to Tate, like nothing happened.
He fought the urge to rip the dress off of her, and disappeared instead. Tate never did do well with competition.
Tate didn't talk to her for weeks, ignoring her as she called for him, watching her from a distance, until prom finally arrived.
He waited by her bedroom door for hours, but she still came home early. Her heard the stomping of her high heels on the slick floors that Moira had just cleaned.
"Well, how was it?" He asked as she bolted through the bedroom door, slamming it behind her.
She was crying. Tate was bitter and upset, but he couldn't take it when Violet cried. He sat down beside her, brushing her hair out of her face, and she let him. She laid her head down in his lap and continued to cry.
"Who did this?" He asked, fury in his voice.
"No," She shrugged. "I did it to myself. I shouldn't have gone."
Tate didn't ask any more questions. He unzipped the dress with fumbling fingers and pressed kisses down her spine.
"It looks too much like a wedding dress anyways," He shrugged, tossing it into her closet.
"Lay with me," She ordered, and he crawled into bed beside her, wrapping his arms around her.
"Shh, you're safe now. You'll always be safe with me." He put his arm around her and kissed the back of her neck gently.
She still cried, but it was softer now.
()()()
Their time in the murder house was coming to a close.
Violet was eighteen now, ready to head off to school. Her father was pushing Stanford, so she could come home and visit, and her mother wanted her to go to a school in Boston.
She went to neither.
"I'm sorry, I just think community college is the best choice for me right now. I think going from high school to living on my own and not having you guys to watch out for is going to be too much to handle."
"Vi," Vivian said. "What's gotten into you? For as long as I can remember, you've been dying to leave home."
"I still am!" Violet assured them. "I just think staying here is the best choice, for right now."
Tate was listening from the top of the stairwell, wanting badly to carve her name into his wrists, to have a part of her with him always. It would never stay though, his body couldn't be altered like that after death. Too bad he didn't still have his corpse lying around-maybe, if he carved Violet into that, then it would stay.
But his body was in a cemetery and hurting himself for her would only make her feel worse.
She was trapped here by her own will, and he didn't know how to make her leave when he wanted her so bad.
()()()
She was nineteen.
Two years older than him now.
()()()
Violet liked her studies, but she liked her job more.
Multiple times she'd tried to talk Vivian and Ben into letting her complete her associates degree and stop there, be a bartender for the rest of her life. Of course, the doctor and his wife would never allow it.
Her last year of community college was coming to a close, a choice would have to be made-and either way, she would have to leave Tate.
()()()
Her decision was made for her.
Her parents divorced, her mother sent her packing for Boston, and she couldn't stop her.
"Please Mom, I want to stay with Dad!"
"Your father's a monster," Vivian shook her head. One affair she could forgive, but twice was unforgettable. "Pack your things, we're going in ten minutes. Anything you leave behind your father can ship over."
Violet fled the room, leaving Vivian to cry in the main hallway.
It was Hayden who killed her, actually, but Tate egged her on. When she was done, Vivian Harmon was dragged off the property-they didn't want scum like that hanging around.
She died thrown on the sidewalk outside of Murder House.
()()()
Violet died soon after, surprisingly not by her own doing.
Being a bartender was fun and exciting, but it had its' downsides. Someone recognized her from high school, the freaky girl in the ghost house, and went after her.
They stabbed her just as she was turning on to her street, and she bolted back to Murder House.
Tate wrapped his arms around her and she pushed him away, angry at what he had done to her mother.
"Go away," She muttered, and Tate couldn't fight it.
He went away, and she died alone in the front yard.
Someone hid her body. Whether it be Moira or Tate or even her dad, she didn't know.
()()()
Ben Harmon left the house and went back to Boston. Rumor had it he tried to find Hayden again, tried to track her down and make her fall in love with him again, but he never could find the brunette beauty. He moved on with someone else.
Violet hid for as long as possible. She stayed in the basement and the nurseries, playing with Beau and Thaddeaus and Larry's little girls. She liked children, would've made a great mother one day if she'd been allowed that fate.
Tate learned to stay hidden, to watch from the shadows, in corners and under beds.
He had a long time to wait for her forgiveness, that was for sure, and wait he would.
Good things come to those who wait.