A/N: I wrote this the day following 2x10 while in a stage of denial. After all, my two favorite characters were dead and I loved them immensely. I shared the story among friends before posting it here, finally.
K+ because there is some cremation at the beginning, but nothing violent.
I do not own American Horror Story or any of affiliates.
The fire burned, burned so very hot it seemed to simply melt his skin. It flicked and crackled, seared and scorched. The pain was unbearable. As the world began to go out, his last dying movement was grabbing her hand very roughly, and refusing to let go.
Arthur Arden woke up wearing very white clothes, laying upon a very white bed, in a very white room. It burned his retinas ever so slightly, like turning on a light when you've been in the dark.
He'd been in the dark for a long time.
There was no noise in this room. It was silent. It crept inside him and rustled his mind. He had lived a long time in the silence, though the voices in his head had pushed it away. The voices were gone now. Disintegrated.
He pushed his torso up onto his arms. The room was familiar, though the memory was very subtle. Arden couldn't remember anything, except for the feeling of flames. His flesh was hot from it.
There were more beds in the room, all white, all made. It was clean, serene perhaps, though quiet. Very quiet. Ominously quiet. He shook his head, trying to adjust his vision to its almost blinding glow.
A blurred shape appeared at the end of his bed. It was a nun. Her habit was white, like the room. Her blond hair was tucked under her cap, her bangs cascading softly over her brow. Her eyes were a tranquil blue, her lips similar to Cupid's bow.
Mary Eunice ran to his side, throwing her arms around him gently, gracefully, as if she were a ballerina. She smelled of something sweet and pure.
"Oh, Doctor, I was so scared you'd never awake. I was beginning to worry," she spoke sweetly into his ear.
Arden gripped her shoulders as he stood. His height frightened him. The nun was short in comparison. Looking down on her made him feel too powerful, too strong. To Mary Eunice, it made her feel safe.
"Where am I?" The first words out of the Doctor's mouth were a question that had been dying to break free.
The Sister pulled his hands from her shoulders. They were warm, a warmth he had so missed. She gripped them tenderly as she spoke to him, intertwining their fingers.
"I'm not sure. All I know is that I awoke here, and I was… going to go through the door," she made a slight nod to a shining, luminescent exit across the room," but it felt awfully wrong, so I waited. For you." She let go of her hold on him and instead flung her arms around him once more. "I didn't feel secure."
Arden tentatively held her in return, closing his eyes and enjoying the moment he had with her. Vaguely, he had an urge to cry, to bawl onto her sweet shoulder, to kiss her pink cheek, but he refrained.
"I'm here now," were the only words he could make out.
Mary Eunice took a step back, a frown on her face, "Doctor, I think we're… I think we're dead. Are we dead?" A tear fell from her blue eye and ran down her porcelain face. He caught it with his finger and smiled.
"My ray of sunshine, even if we are dead, we're here, together, and we can go forth…" He held her cheek in his palm, "together."
She gleamed, taking his hand once more. The nun took a place at his side, and, with one last grin, one last look shared between their blue eyes, they went through the door.
When we die, I'd like to think we forget what happened to us. Our problems, big or small, tedious or simple, are whisked away. We awaken in a purgatory like state, with a feeling, a very nagging feeling, that we must wait. Wait for the ones we love, the ones we care so dearly for. We wait until they join us, and with one happy reunion, we can go on into the light.
Dr. Arthur Arden and Sister Mary Eunice certainly deserved a happy ending, though they didn't receive one.
So, this is their ending. Their real ending. An ending free of Raspers and demons. An ending where they can be together. Because that's what they deserve. Arthur, the man who never had an innocence, and Mary Eunice, the woman who had hers stolen.
This is their happily ever after.
