Title: Mama
Author:
CrazyEyesConnor
Feedback: Please!
Pairing: Brief
and almost microscopic mention of Collins/Angel
Rating: PG
(Cross Dressing, Canon Death)
Genre: General/Drama
Summary:
It's hardest on the parents. A short look at Angel's
mother.
Notes: Written for Challenge #54 on speedrent.
I've been writing fanfiction forever, but this is my first one for
RENT. Feedback would be amazing.
Spoilers: None if you've
seen the movie/show (ZOMG! Angel dies!)
Disclaimer: Don't
own Rent, or; Don't own, Rent (aren't commas fun?)
She had always thought she'd been a good mother to Angel. See, she even called him that…Angel. She had given him a perfectly lovely name, and…but that wasn't important. Not now.
She had gotten the call a few days before Halloween, from a man with a deep bass voice. He asked her to call him Collins. He was crying so hard it took him fifteen minutes to get out the words that Angel was gone.
She cried with him. They stayed on the line for what felt like an eternity, sobbing and offering vague words of comfort. It was hard for her to believe how much she'd cried. Hadn't she had three years to get used to the idea? That her baby would be gone?
She remembered the day she found out who Angel really was. She had come home early that day, sick. When she got to the apartment, all she could think about was taking off her shoes and crawling into bed for a nap. She walked through the front door on tiptoes and shut it silently. Angel should have been doing his homework then, and the boy was so easily distracted that the apartment had to be totally silent for him to get anything done. She crept over to her bedroom and quietly pushed open the door.
She saw Angel standing in front of her full-length mirror, wearing one of her cocktail dresses, lipstick in hand. It was a deep pink shade, and he applied it with the practiced hand of someone who'd done it a million times before. Even in her shock, she had the good sense to back out of the room slowly, before he would notice her there.
She stood in the hallway and put the pieces together in her mind. Her makeup always disappearing. Finding her shoes on the opposite side of her closet from where she had left them. Fifteen and no interest in girls. It had been there staring her in the face, and she had just refused to see it.
She silently hurried back to the entry and loudly opened and shut the door. "Gabriel?" she called out, "Are you home?" He shouted back that he was on the phone and would be out in a second. She heard the rustle of fabric through the door.
She thought back to that day often. He had told her later, of course, and she was proud of him for that. She hugged him and told him that she would love and support him no matter what, which she did. She never told him that she already knew.
She connected her feeling on that day with the feeling when she got that phone call. It was amazing how similar it was. Even though she knew in the back of her mind that it was inevitable, to her it was still unexpected.