This has been sitting half finished on my hard drive for just under a year, it only seems more relevant now so I added a few changes and finished it. This is set a little after Christmas if no one had murdered Archie. If I was not busy this would be so much longer but it might work out better without my talent for going on and on. The title is a lyric from the gorgeously creepy Queen Adreena song Heavenly Surrender. Oh, I listened to the song quoted below a lot while writing. I did not want to write a song fic though, thought that would be too lazy, it was very good for developing the right mood. Feedback is met with glee.
Your Weighted Autonomy
I took you home
Set you on the glass
I pulled off your wings
Then I laughed
I watched a change in you
It's like you never had wings
Now you feel so alive
I've watched you change's like you never had wings...- Change (In The House Of Flies), Deftones
It
It had been set into motion a long time ago, when was debatable. It could be the first time he held his first born, all tiny and warm and so very dependant. Maybe it was the look of fear in her eyes thirteen years later when he towered over her filled with righteous anger at her betrayal. It could have been the first time his own father broke his jaw and left him bloody and bruised.
Archie was a proud man who did not believe in fate, but with the clean lines of the glistening pistol pressed against his temple he could almost fool himself. It was the nature of things, of people, some kind of twisted irony. He always half wondered if it would end this way, in a flash of violence and words too heavy to carry.
The cool metal of the gun pressed painfully into his skull and a slim hand on his arm pushed him further into the desolate room. Her hair fell over her eyes and prevented him from reading them.
She pushed him away and he stumped into the emptiness, surprised that she possessed such strength to use against him.
"Veronica, what are you doing?" He kept his voice even, the words sharp with the promise of anger. His daughter was hard angles and shadows in the semi darkness. She looked like half a person.
A short distance between them and the gun became part of her outstretched arm, the join of her fingers disguised in shadow and making her arm look inhumanly long. It was not enough for him to forget its presence but he knew his daughter, knew her weaknesses.
"Not going to answer me? You're as stubborn as always." Archie scolded.
She takes a sharp step forward and into the gloomy light provided by a mostly inadequate light bulb. Dust particles dance around her head, her face was carefully blank, all hollows and hard angles.
When his girls were small he had learned how to love. The way they looked up at him, all blonde and precious with sparkling blue eyes. They had trusted and needed him and it filled him with such awe. It was as if he had retained some of what his father had tried to beat out of him. They were his, they would always be his.
As they grew older Ronnie presented a challenge. She smarter than her years but she was also insolate. Suddenly his little girl was looking up at him with the accusing eyes of her mother. She had to learn, it was his job as a parent to punish her, to teach her that she would never escape him.
He regretted the brittle anger between them but his eldest daughter was as stubborn as she was volatile and she never so much as let a simple apology passed her lips. Her refusal to except the consequences of her actions was frustrating and her need to blame her father would have been heartbreaking if it had not for the boiling anger that coursed through him.
"Come on V, we both know you don't have it in you. Let's stop the childish games" He belittled his daughter.
Ronnie kept her eyes hard and unreadable but she could not hide the way the muscles in her jaw tightened. Archie's predator dark eyes latched on to the sign of emotion as she swallowed down anxiety willing her anger to burn so hot it consumed everything she was.
"Stop talking." She demanded voice carefully flat and a little husky after a long silence.
"Really I never expected you to be this unhinged, its sad actually, you think killing me will solve anything? I've done nothing but try and save you from yourself." He placed his hands nonchalantly in his pockets and locked eyes with his daughter as he slowly approached her ignoring the gun that was pointed to his chest.
"Stop talking!" Ronnie's shrill shout bounced off the empty walls. She shrunk back away from him resisting the urge to place her hands over her ears. She hated the way his words sunk beneath her skin made her doubt everything she held dear.
Mocking laughter rumbled through Archie's chest. They had played this game hundreds of times and he always won. "What's the matter V, still unable to handle the truth?" He hissed still closing the distance between them.
"I told you to stop talking"! She screamed fuelled by desperate anger she stepped forward till the gun was inches away from touching her father's chest. She was so close she could make out every line on his worn face even in the relative darkness.
"How dare you try and order me around girl! I'm your father and I do not deserve your insolence." He growled at her grabbing hold of her slender wrist tightly and twisted it pointing the gun towards the floor.
She reacted violently to his touch trying to wrench her arm free, her head so clouded she did not even think about how tightly her finger pushed against the trigger. The feel of his hands on her always made her flinch with disgust, made buried emotions resurface. She did not want to feel those things because they inevitably came with flashes of memories she had tried so hard to forget.
He only gripped her arm tighter his nails digging into her skin painfully.
"You have never been a father to me. You are an evil man and I will not let you destroy my life anymore." Ronnie gritted her teeth against the physical pain.
Archie towered over her leaning so close she could feel his warm breath against her forehead. His eyes turned black with anger but she refused to let herself look away.
"You destroy your own life you are just too blind to see it. You hurt everyone you touch Veronica. You've always been a dirty little girl and you always will be."
A strangled scream escaped her lips as tried to push her father away with her free arm. A fury ran through her like nothing she had ever felt before, she wanted to tear him limb from limb. When he tried to catch her other wrist she stamped down on the inside on his foot. Archie gasped in pain and surprise unintentionally letting her go, stumbling back with the force of her blows.
"You fucking bastard! You don't get to talk to me like that anymore. You don't deserve to live!" She pointed the gun at him again with renewed strength. She had nothing left, her father had seen to that, and now she refused to let him leave this place alive.
"So you are going to kill me? What do expect to happen after that? You'll get locked away for the longest time and I'll haunt you." His voice was calm again, expression a parody of that of a concerned parent. She wanted nothing more than to tear at his face till it was only a bloody mess.
"Yes," She hiccupped back a sob as tears turned her eyes glassy. "After doesn't matter because you'll be gone. You'll finally be gone."
A small smile turned his lips but it did not reach his eyes. "What do you want from me, V?" He talked to her as if he was trying to calm a hysterical child.
"I want you to beg! I want you to beg for your life like you made me beg for my daughter" She had kept so much anger and hurt locked inside that she had no control as it burst out of her. She heard the words as they escaped her lips, her voice sounded unfamiliar to her ears. No one had believed her and she could not understand how they could not see the darkness lurking behind his reptilian smile.
And now he had taken away another child from her. The loss was new and the wound was still open. Just when she thought things could not get any worse her father hurt her again.
She was surprised when Archie raised his hands, palms facing her as if in surrender.
"Oh darling." He murmured and she did not understand the gentleness in his voice. She had heard it before when he talked to her sister but never directed at her. She glanced to the side nervously thrown of balance by his sudden change in pace.
"You signed the adoption papers not me. I'm sorry that you miss her but this will not bring her back."
In the deepest corner of her mind she knew he was right but she could not handle hearing the words from his mouth. All she had ever wanted was to be a mother to her daughter yet all the time she girl had been in her life she had treated her horribly.
Danielle, her unborn child, she had lost everything and nothing would ever make her feel complete.
"I won't let you manipulate me again." She whispered wiping the tears away from her cheeks with the base of her thumb the gun still clenched tightly between her fingers. She had come here intending to end the evil man's life but she could not defend herself against his twisted words, not while her pain was so fresh.
"I'm just trying to get through to you. You are not a well woman, sweetheart; I'm trying to save you. If you do this you can never come back from it. Your sister will never understand."
Somehow he had planted the seeds of doubt in her mind. She was not a murder but her father did not deserve to live. The concerned expression in his eyes had to be a lie because it did not belong to the monster that refused to leave her alone.
Her sister flashed through her eyes, Roxy would be devastated at the loss of her father. She would not understand, she had never understood and Ronnie had always been all alone. Instead of destroying her sister's innocence she had strived to protect it. She had worked so hard to keep Roxy safe and to do this now would be to obliterate everything her younger sister held as the truth.
"Stop it please. I just want it to stop." She could not control the way her arm started to shake and waver. It was all too overwhelming. She wanted to hate her father, use the anger to cauterise her wounds but he would not let her. The weight of grief was so large she could barely stand.
"I know there does not seem like there is a way out but there always is V. Just let me be there for you." She stared mutely at him as he approached her again as if she was a frightened animal.
She stiffened against him when he pulled her against him, the gun pressing painfully against his abdomen.
"I don't believe you." Her voice was muffled through her tears and irregular breathing.
Archie smiled as he tucked her head under his chin and wrapped his arms tightly around her. Satisfaction started to build in his stomach when she did not move to pull away even if she did not relax. He had never given up hope that Ronnie could be his obedient daughter once again.
"I know you don't." He chuckled softly; her tears were as cold against the fabric of his shirt as the muzzle of the gun. "Just let me prove it to you."
She felt herself relax slightly but told herself that it was only because she was so tired. It was bizarre how the warmth of her father's arms could affect her so much. She had always been on her own and while she was used to it she could not stop the constant ache of loneliness deep inside. All she had wanted as a child was the type of father who would love and protect her.
Archie hushed her sobs and placed a gentle kiss against her temple. "There see, you are still daddy's little girl."
Ronnie frowned against his chest, she remembered being his little girl, and she remembered being so scared as he had undressed her telling her over and over that it was because he loved her.
"I'll look after you. You'll see. I love you and I'll never leave you, not like everyone else. You will always have me Veronica."
And then she was that little girl again being hurt by the one person a child should be able to trust without question. She had spent so long blaming herself.
There was a bang that rolled around the building in a constant roar, a physical force that made her teeth rattle.
There was something warm, thick and wet on her hands. She looked up to find her father staring down at her, his mouth open in what looked like an expression of pain but her ears were ringing and she couldn't hear anything.
The moment hanged still in time, the air heavy with confusion. Then it was like an explosion as Archie pulled away, red blossoming outwards against the paleness of his shirt. He stumbled back before dropping into a heap.
Old memories still clouded her mind and it took the longest time for Ronnie to realise he was bleeding. She watched numbly as him reached up futilely towards her, his eyes were wide with shock as if he never expected her to be strong enough to shoot him.
The gun dropped from her lose grip as she watched with horrified fascination as the life slowly drained from the man who had caused her so much pain. She wanted nothing more than to believe that this was the end to all her hurt but she did not have enough faith left to truly believe it.
His blood was heavy against the fabric of her clothes and it stained the skin of her fingers, maybe it would never wash away. She thought that this would make her feel better but the reality was that she felt the same. Even if he was dead her father had still violated her and systematically ruined her life.
She could look into her reflection and see her father staring back at her. He was already under her skin and she was capable of creating so much pain. Her father had spent so long trying to break her it was ironic that he had stolen just enough of her soul that she was finally capable of killing him.