Author's Notes: Written for Drabble Challenge #15: Star. I should probably warn for emo.
Now that she's seen many of her old childhood dreams fulfilled, Rose finally comprehends the full meaning of 'be careful what you wish for'.
She's surrounded by family, friends and co-workers, multitudes of people who know her name and care about the details of her life (perhaps even a little too much considering that most of them are complete strangers), more wealth than was held by most of the old Estate combined, and even steady employment doing something truly interesting and worthwhile.
She doesn't want any of it.
It would be so much easier if she could accept that her life is better than most people's and let that be the end of it. Her Mum and Mickey certainly think she should be happy with what she has now, though they're both well aware why she's not. The perfection of this once-coveted life she's stumbled into has turned out to ultimately be an illusion. The falseness of settling for this when she knows exactly what she really wants presses so heavily on her that she feels suffocated.
When it all becomes too much, she finds herself sneaking away into the open air of the night. It's only then that appearances finally reflect the truth: Rose is alone. Here the shrill cries of the insects and the light of the stars above are her only company. It's almost better that way. At least she doesn't have to pretend.
Lying back and staring up into the vastness of space would once have comforted her with recollections of the fantastic people and places she once visited and the man who accompanied her. She can't deny that the sight of it still overpoweringly reminds her of him, but now all it brings is the pain of knowing that the two of them have never danced among these stars. He's not out there waiting for her. He never has been.
This place is wrong.
The night should be pitch, but instead the stars are glaring. She turns away from them, curling on her side and pressing her face to the too-cold grass.
And she cries.