Smile
Canon/speculative.
Ringer never smiled and it wasn't because she was missing any teeth. ["The 5th Wave"]
Rated for implied rape and drugs. Nothing explicit.
3
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[i hope you sleep in a perfect memory
i know it's hard, i've tried
i could never say good bye]
.
Ringer never smiled and it wasn't because she was missing any teeth.
But she used to, though. Smile. She used to smile. She used to laugh and grin and giggle like a stoned lunatic (which actually happened quite often) all the time. Before the Third Wave came roaring into her life and she could only watch on helplessly as everyone she knew and loved vomited blood and other nasty bodily fluids out through their mouth until their lips were permanently stained as bright as overripe strawberries; she watched as they staggered around like raging people who belonged in an insane asylum, wringing their hands and howling, screeching at ruddy, red-hazed hallucinations that only they could see while blood ran down from their nostrils; she watched them collapse into a crimson heap on the floor as the blood plague took over their mind and she watched as they clawed feebly at her, a mad sort of fury glazing over their pale irises (which the sickness had leeched the color from as well) while they made weird noises that were a combination of human and animal and sounded like they were straight from a horror movie. (Which they were.)
And then she watched them drown in a pool of their own slick blood while the light faded from their sunken eyes.
The day her brother died was the very same day Ringer stopped smiling completely and stopped being who she used to be and decided on her default facial appearance, which ironically just so happened to be the expression expressionless.
She promised herself that she would never smile again.
Not until the Others payed for what they did.
.
Ringer wasn't always Ringer. Ringer was the name given to her after she was transferred because that's simply what she was to Squad 17—a ringer. An ace in the hole, so to speak.
But before Ringer she was Alpha. Because she was Squad 26's troop leader and she was a damn good one at that.
And before Alpha she was a girl, a girl who inclined towards the side of a tomboy, a girl who didn't really have any aspirations in life. Maybe become a therapist (she hated children) or become a doctor (she also hated the smell of antiseptic and was secretly terrified of hospitals).
("so, what's your name?"
she studies him impassively. "my name...is irrelevant")
.
That certain girl's name was in fact irrelevant because Ringer, or Alpha, or whomever, has spent the past year trying to bury that very girl underneath an immovable mountain.
Because even though that same girl led a very perfect life and had a very perfect boyfriend and have very perfect grades and was the type of girl that if someone wrote her out in a novel they would be accused of writing a (what did they call it—oh, yes) Mary Sue, that very perfect girl once got high every single night on crack and one day after fifteen years of living her very perfect life on this not-so-green planet she got raped in an alleyway while stoned out of her mind and merely continued to amble passively through this very perfect life, until halfway through her junior year she somehow managed to get caught in a drug scandal here and then her grades were slipping and now look, what's this drunk driving over on and there and it was always something or the other that landed her in ISS or OSS many times (she honestly can't remember what) and finally she promptly got shipped off to the local juvenile delinquent center, otherwise known as a "loony bin".
Ringer didn't appreciate being thrown into a loony bin, but sulking in the loony bin she was when the First Wave hit.
Ringer didn't stop smiling that day but she sure as hell stopped grinning less frequently.
This was the day Ashley Jean Forrester started her rapid descent into the hell that is revenge.
2
.
[you know i'll never forget you
i never thought i'd say that]
.
Ringer never smiled and it wasn't because she couldn't curve her lips up into a small grin.
She didn't want to. She doesn't see the point. Smiling equals happiness and happiness equals not Ringer and really, Ringer hasn't been truly happy since the First Wave rolled over. Maybe she used to be seriously messed up, but Ringer never was and she never will be a liar. So if she isn't happy why should she twist her mouth into a gruesome approximation of a smile that isn't even genuine? She's a realist and she's selfish and she doesn't go into potentially lethal situations with a cheesy smirk stretched across her face to help imbue confidence in others because likely it wouldn't work even if she tried.
They said that just by smiling a single smile you would become happier, but frankly Ringer doesn't think that even a mere smile could create said happiness in a world of gray.
.
Danny Forrester was the most useless and the most mute brother anyone could have and Ringer loved him to death.
He was a sweet kid, an autistic kid who usually kept to himself and caused no trouble and played the piano and various other instruments. A musical prodigy, some would say, but the only time his face lit up with any kind of emotion was when his pudgy bottom was placed onto a bench in front of a keyboard, and he would play and play and play. Sometimes dischordant notes that clashed together and only sounded like white noise, but sometimes luscious melodies that flowed like crystal waters.
Ringer lived for these moments an she didn't even realize it until the music stopped. The music that when she closed her eyes she felt as if she could float on it for eternity, float on an infinite sea of A's and G-sharps and E's that carried her higher than the clouds.
Not that she'd ever thought about this before Danny died. Not that she'd ever bother closing her eyes to the sound of the piano before. The strains of melodies were only a mere memory in her mind by this point but Ringer made a point to clutch onto their magic because it was the only thing remotely happy she had left of the old world.
And here Ringer is not even believing in happiness anymore.
1
.
[you made a mess out of me]
.
Ringer never smiled and it definitely wasn't because she cried instead.
She didn't cry because she didn't have any tears left. She had cried herself out the day he died and then figured out that shedding big fat drops of salty liquid wouldn't bring anyone back from the dead. There was no way to bring anyone back from the dead in the first place and crying only made her head pound painfully and it made it hard to see because of puffy red eyes swollen with liquid.
She promised herself that she would never sob like that again.
So she wouldn't smile and she couldn't cry and she turned her burning sights onto the things that caused this in the first place. She turned her gaze onto the Others, onto the aliens that invaded only four months again, and she vowed revenge on them because they turned her life upside down and proceeded to ruin it ten thousand times over. She vowed revenge on them because of the blood plague and because of Danny.
So Ringer kept her promise.
So Ringer hasn't cried.
So Ringer hasn't smiled.
Yet.
fin