An AU drabble from an RP (Wizard Renegades) I'm in. In response to a drabble written by my friend Rachel (the muggle behind Mary McDonald) found here: askmarymcdonald[.]tumblr[.]com/post/21931092667/a-beautiful-gryffindor-through-and-through
The character Millie Carlton belongs to my friend Chloe. Marcus Cascade is my OC.
Marc sat in the middle of the quiet sitting room. The dull afternoon light filtered in from a window where the curtain was pulled back. He blinked at the light.
Everything seemed emptier today. This house, it's single inhabitant sitting stiffly, engulfed in thick silence. The headline of the newspaper that lay on the floor in the next room, sprawled there after it's brief encounter with the kitchen wall. The upstairs room that was never opened, the door handle never touched. Everything seemed empty.
It'd been a year. A year exactly.
Marc glanced down at his hands. His thumb traced the cool metal surface of the band he'd refused to abandon. It was one of the only things that wasn't empty today. In it he saw a million contradictions. Things sometimes he didn't want to remember but never wanted to forget. In it he saw her.
He saw her the way she'd been when he'd run into her in the hall on the first day. He saw her the way she smiled on their first date. He heard her tell him she loved him. He remembered the perfect moment, when she'd agreed to marry him. And the somehow better moment when he realized that they would always be together. Forever.
Forever.
He shut his eyes, his head bowed. There were more memories, darker memories. Fighting and tears and accusations and slammed doors, but all were harmless when compared to the worst day. The day he couldn't forget. The day that'd stolen the light from his eyes. The day that'd taken away his smile, his laugh. The moment that'd robbed him of hope and possibility, that'd shattered him and left him broken. The day that everything changed and nothing could be done.
The day he'd lost everything he was.
The day he'd lost her.
He relaxed his fists, realizing his fingernails were digging into his palm. There was a knock on the door, but he ignored it, letting the sound echo and disappear. When they knocked again, he got to his feet. He reached the door, his fingers curling around the doorknob. After a long moment, he built up enough strength to turn it.
Millie Carlton.
He looked at her for a long moment, and then turned and walked back to the sitting room. Millie followed him inside and shut the door, glancing at him worriedly. As he took a seat, she leaned down to pick up the newspaper, glancing over the cover story and then back at him. He stared at the wall, his expression unreadable.
A Year Gone By: The World Remembers the Fallen
"Marc?" She asked quietly, stepping into the room. He glanced at her passively.
"Right. Sorry. Hello." He said, his voice thick. He cleared it. She took a seat beside him cautiously.
"How-how are you doing?" He swallowed and shot her a look. "Right." She said, nodding. "Stupid question."
"It's okay," He said quietly, his eyes falling to trace over the pattern of the rug on the floor. She wasn't the only one who'd wanted to know how he was doing. Wanted to see if he was okay. He'd forgotten the meaning of the word, 'okay'.
And sometimes that was infuriating. The rest of the world seemed to move on. Others who'd lost the ones they'd loved had found something to take comfort in, some way to soldier onwards. He envied their optimism. The way they could smile and mean it. They could go back to normal life, to do the things they'd done before.
But for Marc, life had reached a standstill. She'd made him everything he was. She'd healed him and drawn out the life in him and kept him in line. Without her he was lost again. With her gone, he was broken. Nothing was okay, nothing was the same. Things he'd loved to do, even parts of his life that didn't revolve around her lost their appeal. His mind flashed to the guitar up in it's case somewhere, collecting dust. Even music had lost it's luminosity. There was nothing here for him anymore, no point.
And on the worst days, on days like this, he wondered why he kept it up. Why he trudged on through days and days of misery, constant drowning, constant emptiness. It was all because he knew she wouldn't have him giving up. She'd want him to move on, to find a way to have a life without her. To smile the genuine smile he'd found because of her.
To love again.
But how could he? He lived for her, for the memory of her if nothing else, but how could he go back and pretend things were normal? How could he go through life pretending he wasn't dead inside, pretending he could be worth a damn to anyone but her? Not when it'd been his fault she was gone.
Not when he'd let her go.
His eyes stung as he looked back up to Millie. She seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. He knew it was a terrible day for her too, for everyone who'd known her or anyone who'd been lost in the battle. He knew he was being selfish.
"It's not your fault, you know." she said quietly, catching his glance with emotion shining in her dark eyes.
"I know you blame yourself, Marc." She said softly. He looked away. "I know… I know that you want to. Because there are days when I blame myself too, but we can't. None of us can."
He shook his head. "I should have… I should have done something. I could have- "
"No, you couldn't. She would have gone either way." He stood, crossing the room and running his fingers through his hair.
He couldn't stay silent anymore. The anger, the pain, the sadness built up inside of him until he broke and turned, looking at her with a tortured expression.
"It shouldn't have happened at all. None of it! It shouldn't have happened! She should still be here! She's supposed to be here! It wasn't supposed to end… none of it! And I'm so sick of this, of feeling angry and upset and hating myself for not doing something."
"I know-"
"No! You don't know! You have Caspar. Jessie has Xeno, James and Lily have each other, but I'm alone! And you don't understand what it's like! Everyone's starting to move on, but I don't want to! I don't want to forget her, I don't want to be anything without her! I don't want… I just…"
He stood trembling, his chest raising and falling rapidly as he tried to collect himself. But the more he tried to stay calm, the more he felt himself unravelling, falling apart. The tears spiked in his eyes and he shut them, forcing a few hot tears to roll down his cheeks.
Millie stood, looking at him painfully. Quickly, she crossed the room and pulled him into a hug. He stood for a moment, shaking, before hugging her back.
"I shouldn't have said that." he said, letting her go. She withdrew her arms and looked up at him sadly. "I know you get it. It's hard for you too. That was selfish of me." He looked down.
"Marc, you don't have to apologize for that." She said quietly. "Not today, not ever."
He looked up at her and nodded, his eyes falling back down. He noticed the light from the window dimming, and sighed, rubbing his eyes. "You probably have to go, don't you?"
Millie nodded, noting the time herself. The two of them walked over to the door. He opened it for her, and she crossed the threshold. Instead of apparating away, she paused, turning back to him for a moment.
"She really, really loved you." She said simply, looking at him. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. In the dark, he saw it all, from the books falling to the flash of green light. He saw their entire past laid out in his mind, the best years of his life. He'd never get them back, never feel the way he did then. But there would be years to come. And despite every uncertainty, there was one thing he could be sure of.
"I know."