"Francesca"
AUTHOR: Mystic25
SUMMARY: In "I And I Am A Camera" Phil spoke to Max about his sister. This is their story on that fateful day. Told from Phill's POV.
RATING: PG for violence and language
DISCLAIMER: James Cameron's
XXXXXX
"Phillip please, you know she can't play those games, she could hurt herself!"
My mother had a way of commanding attention even over the phone while she was halfway across town. There was no way I could pretend I didn't hear her because she was yelling right in my ear.
"She likes them mom," I insisted, hoping I sounded more an adult then the thirteen-year-old I was. I loved my mother, but she was very overprotective, not so much me as for my little sister.
Just at that moment a flurry of arms and legs blew past the hardwood floor and into the kitchen. There was a loud clanging sound a second later.
I dropped the phone in the middle of my mother's frantic tirade upon hearing the same noise from her end of the line. My bare feet squished on the over plush brown carpet before landing on the cold tile of our cube shaped kitchen.
The silver pots that had been hanging above the stove were now strewn on the floor in front of it along with the remains of a can of soup that I had eaten for dinner.
"Francesca!" In the center of all this mess was my sister. Her legs were splayed out in front of her like a wishbone and the wheels of the roller skates attached to her feet still spun wildly from her ride into the kitchen.
"Francesca, are you okay?" I bent down next her, my heart beating frantically because it was my idea to lend her my old roller skates. I had blades now, but she wanted the old kind because the wheels looked like the ones on cars, or some kind of silly reason like that. I can't remember it exactly, but she begged me and bothered me until I gave in.
My sister had gotten all unarranged in her crash landing so that I was talking to a mass of brown hair that had been thrown in front of her face.
"Francesca?"
Her familiar giggling came a minute later. Her brown eyes peered at me from a tangle of her hair. "That was fun."
"You shouldn't skate in the house Francesca, you can get hurt," My declaration only produced more giggling from my sister. By my ear my mother's voice was screaming, wondering what had happened.
"It's okay mom," I spoke into the receiver to reassure my mother. "I was trying to reach the salad bowls and knocked some pots over." I had to lie because if my mother ever found out that Francesca had fallen in the kitchen she would kill me.
"You're a liar!" Francesca taunted me from her splayed position. She flipped her mass of hair over right in my face. "You're a liar!"
I batted her honey smelling hair away from my nose. "Cut it out!" I insisted. "Or I'll tell mom you were skating in the house. She won't let you play anymore if I do."
Francesca instantly clammed up at the thought of getting in trouble with mom. But a few snatches of laughter still escaped her. She tucked her hair behind her ears and started tugging at the skates. "Help, can't do." She grunted, trying to yank the skates off her feet without undoing the laces.
"Not like that," I pulled one of her feet towards me and untied the laces. Her foot slid out and she waved it around like a freed animal. I undid the other one but this one didn't come out so easily.
"Ow, stop, hurting." She tried to pull her foot away from my hands.
"Sit still," I told her. One of the long green laces had gotten wound up in one of the rods that made up her leg braces.
"Phil stop-"
Francesca was the only one who called me Phil. Everyone else, even my friends at school, called me 'Phillip'. Phillip sounded more adult, but I was only thirteen. I didn't want to sound like a stuffy office man. I liked it when Francesca called me "Phil" because she had a hard time getting the 'h' to sound right so she said it like she had a stuffy nose: "Pill"
I finally managed to undo the winding tangle that had been in the lace and pulled the skate off her foot.
Francesca wriggled her sock less foot at me, "Thanks Phil."
"Phillip, I'm talking to you! Is everything okay? Answer me!"
Uh oh, working on Francesca's knotted up laces made me completely forget about mom. She sounded exactly like she does when she's about to ground me.
"Everything's fine mom," I had to clamp my hand over Francesca's mouth when she started to giggle again. She licked my hand and laughed when I pulled back disgusted.
I wiped my hand on my jeans, and then caught the last snatches of my mom's words. "We don't need a sitter mom. I'm thirteen I can take care of Francesca and myself. She's not a baby; she likes hanging out with me. Okay," I tried to keep the sigh of relief out of my voice when my mother let the matter drop. "We'll be careful. Yes, I'll watch her. I won't let anything happen to her, I promise. Bye mom." I hung up.
"Bye mom," Francesca mocked me making a snooty, kissey face.
Despite all that had happened, I laughed. She had way of making me smile, and she wouldn't do it with anyone else but me. I think its cause mom always treats her like she's some delicate dish or something that will break if it's not handled right. When mom's around Francesca sits quietly doing some old fashioned matching card game or listening to one of my old CD's. She seems to think mom wants her to act dull and boring so she does it. But with me it's like she's a different girl. She pulls pranks on me; she always gets into my stuff. She leaves me silly notes scrawled in her sloppy handwriting about how she's beautiful and I'm ugly as Medusa. I don't know where she learned about Medusa because I had to look her up when I got Francesca's note.
She hasn't "been right" (a phrase my grandmother uses) since she was born. There was something wrong with how she came out when mom had her. Her head and legs were all curled up together when she was born and it broke her legs or something and damaged her skull. Her legs were fixed but they never grew right so she was fitted with braces as soon as she could walk, which was around the normal age of two. She grew physically as fine as any baby. The doctors had fixed her skull, but a small part of her brain got messed up so she didn't speak until she was three, and even then she had problems forming words.
Mom and dad took her to all kinds of specialists to try and get her to talk normally. But it was expensive and eventually dad took off one day because he couldn't handle trying to hold down three jobs to support Francesca. None of the doctor visits did any good. Francesca still didn't learn to talk like mom or me. But she didn't seem slow, like some of the kids I see in the Special Needs Class. She devoured books and seemed to understand everything in them; she had a knack for memorizing things she heard, and she was in normal classes at school, going to a Special Needs place afterwards.
The only thing that seemed off about her was that she got scared easily. Little things, like the sounds of sirens going by our house, or rain falling from the sky. Once she got caught out in the rain and screamed her head off because she thought the rain was attacking her. Mom say's its because the loud noises bother her, but I don't believe it. Rain isn't that loud when it falls. I think new things that scare her. It started to rain when we were walking home from school one day, and I kept trying to get her under the big umbrella I had but she kept avoiding it, getting completely soaked, and laughing the whole time. Once she realizes that something isn't going to hurt her she stops being scared.
That's how it was with my roller skates. She fell a few times and skinned her knees and wouldn't go near them for a week. But finally I helped her learn how to skate without wobbling and she wouldn't even give them back to me. It all seemed like a good idea, until today.
"I'm hungry Phil," Francesca whined at me pushing the skates away and standing up from the pile of pots she was in. They clattered around her and she jumped for a second at the sudden loud noise. But then she bit on her bottom lip and glared at the mess. I think she was trying not to let the noise scare her, she already knew pots weren't bad.
"Again?" I asked exasperated. It was only one thirty and she had eaten a bunch of Eggo Waffles at breakfast.
"Again," Francesca repeated, mocking me. Sometimes she sounded just like any other twelve- year-old girl that I would forget she even had a problem at all. "Please Phil?" She batted her eyelashes at me. I have no idea where she picked that up, but she did it a lot when she was trying to get her way.
I sighed "Okay, but not because of that look."
She grinned at me, pleased that I gave in. "Why not because?" She watched me pick up all the pots from the floor and use a dishrag to mop up the spilt soup that ran in-between them.
"Because I don't think about you like that," I told her, placing the last bronze pot on top of the pile.
"Like what?" Once Francesca started in on something she didn't quit.
"Like your pretty okay?" She was bothering me with all her questions. Mom tells me to have more patience with her because of her disability; but to me she was just being annoying like all other little sisters.
Francesca looked confused for a moment, and when she's confused she chews on her bottom lip. "You don't think I pretty?"
"I didn't mean that," I tried to think up something because I really didn't want to hurt her feelings. "You're my sister, okay. And brothers don't usually go around saying how pretty their sisters are."
"You think I pretty?" Francesca looked honestly impressed by my words.
I had never really thought about it. She wasn't ugly, no that's mean. I tried to think of her as some girl in my class. She had long brown straight hair, and her skin was really light like moms and mine. She did have pretty eyes; they were dark brown like her hair, which she always wore pulled back into a barrette. She was small and kinda bony, with long legs. She was wearing a white dress with tiny flowers that came to her knees and a jean jacket she had gotten as a present on her last birthday. I felt really weird for thinking about it, but I guess she was pretty.
Francesca was looking at me nervously, and she looked about ready to cry because I hadn't said anything.
"Yeah," I finally started talking. "I think you're pretty."
Her whole face lit up then and she smiled like she had just won an award. I couldn't help it, her smile was catching and I smiled back, despite how weird it felt to be thinking of my sister like that.
"You pretty too Phil."
"I'm a boy Francesca, boy's aren't supposed to be pretty." I insisted pushing past her to get into our pantry. The soup I had made for myself half an hour ago was wasted so I pulled down a can of Spaghetti O's from the top shelf.
Francesca eyed the can, looking disappointed. "No Alphabets?"
"You ate the last Alphabet can yesterday," I reminded her sliding the can under the electric can opener attached to the bottom of the cabinet.
"Alphabets are better," Francesca crossed her arms across her chest the way mom does when she's upset. She had a pouting look on her face.
"It's the same thing," I informed pulling the can free from the lid. "The O's taste just like the other letters." I hunted around for a bowl in the cabinet and dumped the Spaghetti O's into a pink bowl with flowers and stuck in the microwave.
Francesca shifted from foot to foot impatiently waiting for the timer to ding; the bottoms of her leg braces clicked on the floor each time she moved. When the microwave finally stopped I popped open the door and she reached in immediately to grab the bowl.
"No!" I scolded her like she was three, watching her shrink from my tone. "It's too hot to touch like that." I grabbed the oven mitts that hung from a hook on the refrigerator and slid them on my hand. "You have to be careful Francesca, you could've burned yourself." Carefully I took the bowl out of the microwave and carried it out to the small square table where we ate.
Francesca followed me, taking slow, swaying steps. I set the bowl of Spaghetti O's on the table and waited for her to reach me before I sat down. I didn't offer to help because she always wanted to do things on her own.
Francesca pulled back her chair and sat down sideways; then gripped each leg in her hand and pulled them under the table. She has to do that every time she sat down. She could walk pretty good but had a hard time getting her legs to move when she wasn't standing. When I first noticed it when she was three (I was four) I kept staring at her. Dad was still with us then, and he yelled at me forever for gaping at my sister. I couldn't help it because I never saw anyone sit like that. But now she's 12 and I've gotten used to the way she moves around so I don't even pay attention anymore.
"You want?" Francesca asked after she got comfortable.
"No," I responded. "I'm not hungry." I watched her pick up the spoon I laid down beside the bowl and attack the Spaghetti O's. Wow, she really was hungry. By the time she was on her fifth bite sauce was staining her chin and some of it dribbled on the tabletop.
She must have sensed the way she looked because she started giggling and this made some of the O's fly out of her mouth and onto the table.
"Ugh," I said disgusted. "You're so gross."
"No way!" Francesca proclaimed, swallowing and reaching for another spoonful.
"Yes you are," I insisted. "Look at you, you're a mess! You look like you did when you were a baby."
"I not a baby Phil!" Francesca cried after she swallowed again.
"I didn't say you were a baby Francesca," I corrected. "I said you look like you did when you were a baby. Mom took a picture of you when you were one and ate spaghetti; and you had sauce all over your face just like you do now."
Francesca considered what I said, and concluded that it was funny and started giggling again.
I wanted take a picture of her, giggling, spoon in hand, red dripping off her chin. But I used the last of the film from my camera taking pictures of ducks at the park. I'm really into photography. I use to snap pictures with the disposable cameras mom always bought. But they never came out really well because the cameras were so cheap and mom wouldn't buy anything better. But for my birthday this year mom surprised me. I got a Cannon W-3S camera with an automatic winder and a zoom lens. The only catch was I had to provide money for the film and development. I save the money from my paper route to buy the good kind of film and the cost of having a professional dark room develop my pictures instead of taking them to one of those One Hour places.
Mom says I have a knack for pictures and asked me to take one of Francesca to send to Grandma on her birthday. I took it last week at the park and it came out really well. The sun was behind her and she was actually smiling instead of the goofy faces she usually makes in pictures. I haven't sent it to Grandma yet because mom wants to buy a nice frame for it yet and hasn't found the time. I actually don't want to send of it. Grandparents always get the nice pictures of the family. I think it's cool to have a few good photos of your family for yourself.
I guess I'll just have to make Spaghetti O's for Francesca again and take picture then. She was a messy eater so I wouldn't have a problem with waiting for her to be like this again.
Francesca finished her food and stared at me like she wanted something.
"Don't tell me you're still hungry," I said, trying to figure out what she was trying to say with her look.
She shook her head and pushed her empty bowl away. "Want to play Dominos?"
My sister loved stacking up dominos in rows and knocking them over. I would help her make huge elaborate patterns that took at least an hour to build. And then after all our work she'd push the first one and they'd all tumble down one by one. She'd laugh her head off the whole time the dominoes were falling and then she begged to play again.
I sighed, I had a new pack of baseball cards I haven't gone through yet, plus I had only two days of spring vacation left and hadn't even started on my paper I was supposed to have done on Monday. I looked warily over to Francesca, about to tell her that I didn't want to play. But she was sticking out her bottom lip and doing a very good job at making me feel guilty if I didn't give in.
"Okay," I agreed. I stood up from my chair and stretched. "I have to go to the bathroom. Put your bowl in the sink and then bring the Dominos in the living room and I'll be there in a second."
"Yay!" Francesca squealed and picked up her empty bowl in both hands. She walked to the kitchen with it and I headed into the hall bathroom to pee.
I was just about to wash my hands when I heard a loud crashing sound coming from the living room.
I turned off the light, and flung open the door. "Francesca?" I worried that she might have fallen on something, or maybe she was just trying to mess with me. But either way that noise was way too loud to be ignored.
Our hallway was very short so I came back out into the big room that we used both as a dining room and as a living room. I found my sister, standing in the center of the floor in front of our gray couch. Her eyes were huge, staring at something in front of her.
"Francesca are you oka-" My words were cut off when I saw the shape of a gun being held in the arms of a big thickly build man.
The gun swirled around to me, and a pair of really light colored eyes glared at me from under a red baseball cap. I realized in terror that the gun was actually a shotgun with a big nosed barrel. My Uncle Pete had one just like it and he could kill deer in one shot with it.
"Get over here boy!" the man with the gun screamed at me.
I wasn't about to argue and walked, almost ran, over to where Francesca was standing. I could hear her wheezy breathing even before I reached her. She looked absolutely terrified, and she wasn't the only one. Behind the first man, a similar-sized man with a stocking covering his face was opening the drawers in the desk that sat by the front window. I figured he was looking for money, though I knew mom kept all her checks in her bedroom, but I was too afraid to talk.
"There's nothing in here man!" the second man was talking to the first. He looked really mad, pissed off. He slammed the drawer shut.
The man with the gun pushed it closer to us. "Where do your parents keep the money kids?"
My heart was pounding in my chest as I stared at the gun. I felt about ready to pee on myself like a baby, but I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of these kinds of men.
"That's mommy's money!" Francesca's voice was scared, but defiant.
"It's my money now kid!" The man with the gun yelled in her face.
"No it not!" Francesca was yelling back at the man.
"Shut up!" I yelled at her. I had never screamed at my sister like that before but I was scared of what the men would do if she made them mad. Francesca looked about ready to cry but I ignored her and turned to the man with the gun. "She keeps her checks it in her bedroom, in the night table."
The man with the gun laughed, almost like a clown, but it sounded too scary to be funny. "You hear that man?" He turned back to the second man. "These babies wanna give me checks," His laughter stopped and he turned back to me with evil looking eyes. "What the fuck am I gonna do with checks you little idiot! Your momma ain't here to sign any checks so I can cash them! I want money, cash, so quit fucking with me and tell me where she keeps it!"
"Mommy likes her money!" Francesca cried.
The man grabbed her by the arm, pulled her away from me.
"Stop it!" I yelled. "Leave her alone! You're scaring her!"
Francesca screamed the entire time the man dragged her to the opposite wall. He shoved her against it, making her fall onto her knees and pointed the gun at her head. "Shut your trap kid!" The gun cocked in her face.
"NO!" I screamed. I started to run to her but the man spun around and pointed the gun at me.
"Shut up!" He walked over and seized my hair, making my neck snap back like a chicken bone. "Take care of the girl!"
I moved one eye in time to see the second man coming at Francesca with a big knife. He grabbed her by her dress, slammed her against his body and put the knife at his neck.
The man with the gun breathed warm, beer smelling breath on my eyes. "You move again young man and my buddy's gonna gut your sister, understand?" He didn't wait for me to answer. Francesca kept screaming. "Now tell the girl to quit screaming! Else my buddy's gonna have some fun. He likes little girls."
"Yeah," The man with the gun's 'buddy' said. He pulled her head up and looked at her face. "She's real pretty, aren't you darlin'?"
I felt vomit rise in my throat after getting what they meant. "Francesca, stop screaming please." My voice was trembling, but I had to get the words out. "Please stop, he won't hurt you if you're quiet."
Francesca put complete trust in me and went quiet. Deep inside me I wished she wouldn't have been so obedient and screamed more to get someone outside to notice what was going on. But that was a stupid wish. My sister wouldn't understand what those men would do to her if she kept yelling, and I couldn't let them do it.
The man released my neck and I felt a sharp pain from where he had wrenched it back. I cautiously rubbed the back of it with my hand. Francesca had been released too, and she was now sitting down on the floor, her legs splayed out in front of her just like with the roller skates.
"Please," I begged to the man holding the rifle. "Can I go to my sister?"
The man with the gun scratched his head with it. I don't think he was really itchy, he was just giving me the permission to move, but didn't want to make me think he was giving in.
I was too afraid to move, and I wanted Francesca as far away from the man with the knife as possible so I called out to her. "Francesca, come here, it's okay."
My sister couldn't stand up because there was nothing against the wall to grab onto so she crawled on all fours towards me in the center of the room. I pulled her to her feet when she reached me and she threw her arms around me, her leg braces were digging into my jeans.
"Phil I scared!" She kept repeating that phrase over and over again; squeezing me so hard I found it hard to breathe.
I was a good three inches taller then her and I wrapped my arms around her neck and hugged her back. Her honey shampoo assaulted my nose, and I felt her crying.
"That's enough children," The man with the gun suddenly spoke again. "Playtime is over," He pulled us apart.
The second man yanked Francesca out of my grasp and dragged me to the other wall. "Tie up the girl!" He threw me against the wall and I heard Francesca scream again, louder.
My head hit the wall and I saw stars for a moment, but I didn't black out. The man with the gun grabbed my hands and pulled them behind my back, winding the phone wire around them.
"There's no fuckin' cash in this crap hole man!" The man talked as he tied me up, like he was just at the park or something.
"Let's just take the television and get outta here man!" the second man yelled back. "These kids are getting on my nerves!" He tied up Francesca with a stocking he had pulled from his pants pocket.
Francesca kept squirming, but finally he pinned her down and tied up her hands. She wasn't screaming anymore, she was sobbing. And she's very loud when she cries.
"That's enough girl!" The man tied up her legs with the rest of the stocking. I knew Francesca couldn't pull herself up without help, but he didn't seem to know that.
Once Francesca gets started crying she doesn't stop until someone speaks to her calmly, but this was something else these men didn't know.
"I said quit it!" The man yelled.
Francesca kept sobbing, saying words I couldn't understand because of the choking tears.
"Shut up you little bitch!" the man hit her hard on the side of the head.
I watched horrified as her head slammed back hard against the wall. Blood spurted out of her nose and she fell to the floor, landing on her side. "Francesca!"
The man pulled back, he looked afraid. I don't think he really wanted to do that. He stared at Francesca who didn't move on the floor and then his eyes turned back to the man with the gun. "Grab the fuckin' TV and let's get the fuck outta here!"
Our television was right beside me in the entertainment cabinet and the man with the gun dropped his weapon and pulled the TV out of it. All the wires that were plugged into it ripped off the back and sparks flew at me, singing my shirt and burning my arm.
The man picked up his gun and he and the second man ran out the front door that had been broken into. I then realized that that was the noise I had heard from the bathroom.
I waited, afraid that they would come back and shoot us because we knew what they looked like. But after a minute went by the house was still quiet. I pulled at the wire around my hands, twisting and turning, feeling a terrible burning in my wrists from my movements. Finally I yanked my arms apart really hard and heard a snap as the wires gave way.
My head was spinning and my arms felt like lead but I stood up and ran over to where they had tied up Francesca.
"Francesca!" I untied her hands and feet. She didn't move at all. "Francesca, wake up!" I slapped her face trying to get her to move. My hand came away wet. The wall behind her was streaked with blood. When the man hit her she hand fallen back and hit her head on the Starfish shaped air freshener that mom had bought on our beach vacation.
The back and right side of her head was covered in blood; the stain was matted in her hair and ran down the side of her face.
"Francesca?" My voice sounded squeaky to my own ears. Dazed, I couldn't think of what to do next. I had ripped apart the phone line in here so there was no way I could call for help.
The only other phone in the house was in mom's bedroom. I didn't want to leave Francesca lying there. But I had to call someone or it could be hours before anyone found out what had happened.
I got to my feet and ran faster then I ever knew I could to mom's room. Her phone wasn't a cordless like the one in the living room so I had to use it in there. I didn't know the local number for the police, so I dialed 911. A lady came on the line.
"Please help us! Some men broke into our house and my sister's bleeding really bad!"
"Are the men still there?" the woman dispatcher's voice was deep.
"No!" I was screaming into the phone. "They ran out, please you have to send someone!"
"I'm sending police and an ambulance over immediately. Tell me your address."
"120 West Park Ave," I kept tripping over my own address. "Tell them to hurry up!"
"They're on the way son, tell me your name and stay on the line-"I hung up on the dispatcher and threw the phone on the bed. I ran back to the living room; Francesca hadn't moved at all. A small puddle of blood had collected on the floor behind her head. I touched the skin of her arm, it was still warm, but when I felt under her nose there was no air moving.
"Francesca?" I thought of doing CPR, I was desperate, but I didn't remember anything but the first step. I carefully rolled her over onto her back and pressed my ear to her chest.
I could barely hear a faint heart beat, but after a few strained seconds it stopped. I kept listening, but it didn't start up again.
I kept my head there, feeling a stinging pain grow in my chest. I very rarely cried but I felt a sob come out of me before I could stop it. Slowly I lifted my head up and looked down at her face.
A few drops of the blood that had leaked out of her nose had trickled down her mouth and chin. I used my hand to wipe her face clean. I couldn't stand the way it made her looked. After all traces of it were gone, she looked only like she was sleeping.
I stroked her long hair, getting the blood in it matted in my fingers. She was very pretty, lying there, long hair, smooth skin. She would be beautiful when she got older
"Francesca-" my voice was all but gone now. I talked to her, somehow insanely hoping that she would talk back. She didn't and that was what tore at me more then anything else, because I suddenly realized I would never hear her voice again.
It was all my fault that she was laying there. She trusted me to help her, and I didn't. Those men with their stupid gun had power over me, and now they were gone but it was too late to save her.
"I'm sorry," I choked on the words and put my face into her neck and cried hot tears.
When the police and ambulance came later they found us like this. A pretty little girl lying dead on the floor, and her brother crying beside her because it was the only thing left he could do for her.
XXXXXXXXXX
End.
Before anyone tells me "this isn't a DA fic," it is. It's not about Max, which would make it a "true DA fic" I guess. But it is about a character from Dark Angel. Don't flame me on that, I merely wanted to look outside the scope of regular characters, and I didn't make you read it.
It's very tragically sad, but Phil was talking so mournfully about his sister Francesca in "I And I Am A Camera" I wondered about the day she was killed, and well, this is what happened when I wonder.
R/R please.
Peace
mystic