A/N: Warning: Major angst ahead. Double warning: Character death.
This idea just wouldn't leave me. Inspired by the song Part 1: The Broken Bride by Ludo.
Thanks to Jay for the beta-ing and MagicMica for being my Socrates.
The world is strange, the stinking earth and giant trees...
My life wasn't supposed to turn out this way.
I wasn't supposed to end up huddled over my laptop and furiously scouring medical journals every night.
Alone.
Desperate...
I was supposed to be married.
I was supposed to be using my knowledge of science to work on my time machine on the weekends.
My biggest concern should be what fancy new restaurant I would take my wife to this Friday for our weekly date night.
But instead, I'm here.
And she's not.
She's cold and lifeless and lying in the cryogenic freezer in the basement.
Want to get back to that morning in May...
We're on vacation in Hawaii.
It's the first trip we've been on since we moved in together eighteen months ago. She had to put in for time off really far in advance. She gets super busy with her job. But I guess people will always need to know the news... People don't really need my inventions though. Nicotine patches for cats. A robot that makes your bed. A special heat-insulated clothing line for ducks in sub-zero environments. Not exactly life-changing stuff. But that made it easy to co-ordinate our holiday.
We've just had breakfast and we're walking along the beach hand in hand, the sound of the ocean in our ears and the morning sun warming our skin, when she suddenly stops and turns to face me. There's something in her eyes that I can't quite place. She looks serious... maybe even a bit nervous.
"B... I... I have to tell you something." At my concerned nod, she takes both of my hands in hers and gives me a shaky smile. "Brittany... I love you. I've loved you ever since... well, ever since I knew what the word 'love' meant to be honest. You make me feel things that I never even thought possible... And I've known for a long time now that you're the person I want to spend the rest of my life with." She takes a deep breath and scrunches her eyebrows together. "There's no-one like you. No-one could ever make me feel whole like you do. You're my beginning and my end, my morning and night... my always and forever... And all I can hope to offer you in return for the privilege of having you as my own... is a promise." She swallows, squeezing my hands a little as she steadies herself again. "Brittany – If you agree to be mine, I promise to stop leaving my clothes on the floor and start doing the laundry." I can't help but let out a giggle at her cheeky grin. "I promise to always leave you the last slice of pizza and let you pick the movie. I promise not to hog the covers, and always be the big spoon when it's cold." She bites her lip, her face turning serious once more. "But most of all, I promise to never, ever stop fighting for us, no matter how hard it gets... And I swear to love you with everything I have... until I breathe my last breath and into whatever lies beyond that." She bends to one knee and pulls out a red velvet ring box, snapping it open and turning it towards me timidly. "Will you marry me?"
The faint tears in my eyes and the uncontrollable smile on my face answers her before my voice even sounds.
The trembling fingers she uses to slip the modest yet stunning white gold ring onto my finger, and the equally teary and ecstatic kiss she lays on my lips are permanently etched into my memory.
We set the date for the following April. A spring wedding... outdoors... at a beautiful park.
But we never make it there.
Circuits fail, the cosmic strings like rubber bands, I lose control...
It took two years to gather all the parts and knowledge I needed to piece my most important invention together. Two years of crying myself to sleep and throwing up half my meals. A time during which I broke my hand from slamming it into a table too hard when my overworked and ill-equipped brain failed me yet again, in this instance causing a wrong calculation that set my progress back another six months. Two years of loneliness and despair. Two years in which I'm sure I lost my mind.
Without her, I'm nothing.
I don't have that quiet strength, or that sparkly, imaginative perspective on life anymore. I can't bring myself to drift in fantasy. Even my laugh is hollow and broken. Everything inside of me that isn't pain and heartbreak now feels fake... soulless. I only see darkness... and I only feel bitterness and regret.
I stopped talking to my friends six months after she died. And then cut off my family a month after that.
I quit trying to make things and just lived off our wedding savings.
I eventually stopped leaving the house altogether. If I needed anything, I ordered it online. I didn't want to see anyone, or hear their worthless apologies or pleas for me to try and move on. There was no moving on.
Not from her.
Not from the girl who had my heart for fifteen years... the only person I ever wanted to share my life with. Every wish, every hope and dream. It was all with her.
That's why I couldn't possibly let her go. Santana was my everything. She kept me safe. She taught me things. She had patience and took the time to understand when nobody else bothered. I never even imagined a future where she wasn't there holding my hand and whispering words of adoration in my ear. And yet, here I am.
I refuse to accept that this is it... that this is just my life now. A never ending waiting game, with no goal at the end.
Our house is so big and empty. I sit at our table each night, and set only one place. I sleep alone in our bed meant for two. I surround myself with pillows covered in her perfume so that when I wake up, my sleep-muddled brain can steal just a few moments of peaceful delusion before the bleak reality of my world comes crashing back down to cut me like shattered glass. I never cleared her side of the closet. Hell, I didn't even throw out her toothbrush.
Because I always knew that I was going to make it right.
She's going to need her things again soon enough.
The diagrams and haunted sleep, frozen sheets - In bed, my dreams...
"I love you." I whisper, snuggling tighter into her side. Our naked bodies are entangled like vines on a humid rainforest floor, sticky and clinging with need and honesty. Nothing had ever felt so right. When we held each other like this, it was the only time I felt truly at peace. Not just physically, but in every sense of the word. She filled a void in my very being. She smoothed over the spider-cracks and caverns so perfectly; it was like she was made just for me.
"I love you so much B." Her low, raspy voice lulled me further into bliss. Strands of midnight black tickled the skin of my cheek and with a subtle turn, I immersed myself in their silky touch, breathing in deeply as the moment flowed into my chest and spread hot through my limbs.
Sunlight had begun streaming through the gaps in the curtains and caressing our legs. On Sunday mornings, Santana always made me pancakes. My tummy was already giddy with the thought.
Before she got up to start on our breakfast though, she squeezed me tight in her arms and said with as much conviction as she always did that she was so grateful and so lucky to have me.
I knew better though. I was the lucky one.
Like winter nights, the starts, the ice, all intertwined...
The weather's been getting worse. It brings a tiny smile to my lips and flicker of hope to my chest. One day soon, it will be bad enough so that it's just right.
But I've still got a lot to do before then. I have to be prepared.
I re-read all my journals. I tweak and test the settings, triple check the wiring and tighten the nuts and bolts until my hands are calloused and raw. I do another three or four practice runs.
There's a cage full of my successes... And a trashcan for my failures.
But the statistics are in my favor.
Normal behavior and reflexes, reaction times, intelligence... If I cared enough to share my work with anyone, I would be highly praised for such a breakthrough. But that means nothing to me. No great feat of science or biology holds any importance.
Just her.
This is all for her.
Like motor oil down my throat, I couldn't speak...
"Quit it!" I cry.
The boy stomped all over my sandcastle and then, as if that wasn't enough, he started kicking the sand at me. I can taste the bitter granules in my mouth and despite my efforts to shield my face and my pleas for him to stop, he persists, laughing gleefully at my pain. The sprays of salt have even gotten into my eyes. It burns.
"You heard her - she said get lost, loser!" An unfamiliar voice echoes in my ears. I don't let down my guard to see who it is though. I'm still too upset.
"And who are you? Her girlfriend?" The mean boy teases.
"No... but I can be your worst nightmare if you don't go away right now." The strange girl threatens.
At another time, I might have giggled at her dramatics. But I just sit there quietly pouting.
"Whatever." The boy huffs. "She's a crybaby wimp anyways."
I hear his footsteps as he stomps away, probably off to traumatize another random kid on the monkeybars.
I jump when a gentle hand touches my shoulder. "Hey... He's gone now. Are you okay?" Her voice is much softer now.
Tentatively, I lower my arms from my face and open my eyes, only to be met by tan skin, chocolate eyes and long, dark brown hair.
She's the prettiest girl I've ever seen. I can't help but stare.
"Did he hurt you?" She asks tenderly.
I can't even bring myself to speak. I'm too captivated. So I just shake my head dumbly. She offers me her hand so that she can pull me up from the ground. I take it without hesitation.
When I'm on my feet, she smiles at me. "Boys can be such jerks sometimes... I'm Santana by the way."
I bite my lip shyly and grin. "N-Nice to meet you, Santana..." I finally mumble. "I'm Brittany."
We spend a few moments just watching each other, caught in our own little bubble, until she mentions something about playing on the jungle gym together. I agree, and just like that, at only eight years old, my entire life changes.
I never thanked her for standing up for me that day.
But it wouldn't be the last time she took care of me.
I must get to my machine, I will bring you back to life - fix your ruined lungs, I'll undo what time has done...
Tonight's the night.
The roof is being battered by a fierce downpour. The windows are rattling in place against the wind. The floorboards are quaking from each boom of thunder. And most importantly, the dark night sky is cracked open every few minutes by bright, angry lightning strikes.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
It's finally time.
Everything's been checked. Everything's been tested. I have everything I need to make this happen.
All that's left is her.
This is the part I was dreading. She's small, and I'm strong. Lifting her won't be a problem. But holding her in my arms again? Freezing cold and empty? I swallow down a surge of bile.
It's not really her. It's just her outsides. It's just the vessel I need to bring the real her back to me.
Besides, there was a time not so long ago when I spent endless hours working to repair her. She couldn't wake up in the state that she was in.
Not even the practice kits and animal remains I'd used to develop my steady hands could prepare me for the feel of her cool, brittle skin.
The memory sends a shiver down my spine and forces another dry heave up from my gut. The first time I tried to start fixing her, I fainted. On my second attempt, I drenched the floor with my stomach lining. By the third however, I found the strength to push through. I owed her so much. She deserved my best effort and she was worth every challenge of this ordeal.
I would suffer this pain, this horror, a thousand times over if it meant having her back in my life.
And I will have her back. There's no other option.
I pull on some surgical gloves and don my leather apron. Then I make the long, terrifying descent to the basement.
To collect my bride...
That massive, screaming thing with wings of reaper's cloth, It's standing just outside...
"Santana? Are you upstairs? I tried calling but there was no answer." I walk towards the kitchen, shuffling through the grocery bag in my arms as I go. "They didn't have that soup you like. So I just got tomato. I hope that's okay."
When another minute or two goes by without a response, I start to get worried. Santana had the flu, so I'd been taking care of her the past few days. It wasn't anything serious. Just an upset tummy, and some weakness and dizziness. Pretty standard flu symptoms. But I took her to the doctor anyways and now we were just waiting for the meds to kick in.
She said something about taking a bath while I went to the store to get something for dinner. So I make my way upstairs and towards the en suite off our bedroom. Everything is quiet. There's no TV on, no music. In that moment I wonder if maybe she just fell asleep in the tub.
With a careful hand, I push open the bathroom door.
She's lying there.
Under the water.
She's not moving.
For a few seconds, I'm frozen to the spot. I don't know what to do. My eyes can't seem to comprehend what they're seeing. Why is she just lying there? Is she trying to see how long she can hold her breath? Why would she do that?
A giant alarm bell is going off in my brain and then I'm springing into action. I run towards the tub and pull her into a sitting position. It's then that I notice the faint pink tinge of the water. There's a bump on her temple with a cut in the middle. She must have hit her head.
"Santana!"
I shake her.
She doesn't wake up.
"SANTANA!" I start screaming at her and shaking her back and forth as hard as I can. But she's like a rag doll. She's not breathing. Her lips are blue. Her skin isn't warm anymore.
In a panic I look around, desperate for something, anything, to help me. I see her phone on the bathroom counter near the sink. One missed call.
She slipped because she was trying to get to her phone.
Because I was calling her.
She was feeling dizzy and weak and she slipped and hit her head and drowned.
I really don't remember much after that. I know I tried to give her CPR. I know I called the ambulance. But I don't actually remember doing any of that.
I just remember the way it felt to know that I was the reason she was dead... that cold, haunting guilt that overtook every last cell in my body.
I was the reason Santana was gone... and now, she was never coming back.
Through heavy air a demon shrieks - What have I done? What hell is waiting for me?
It wasn't easy getting her back here. There had to be a funeral. But I couldn't let her be embalmed. That would ruin everything. Even amongst all the shock and crippling loss, I somehow knew I had to act quickly. I had to be smart, think about the practical side.
I was just lucky that I already had the freezer from the testing stage for one of my previous experiments.
I guess that thermal duck clothing line was useful after all.
I choke back a harsh sob as I place her onto the metal table. Her weight in my arms is so familiar; the shape of her fragile body beneath my hands is like hearing a song that I used to love, but had somehow forgotten about. Part of me just wanted to hold her. I wanted to ignore the fact that she was freezing. I wanted to pretend I couldn't see the imperfect sutures marring the middle of her once unspoiled chest. I wanted to wrap her body around mine and make believe that things weren't like this, that she was still here with me, holding me tight in a storm.
But all of my wishes for things to be different wouldn't bring her back.
Only my machine could do that.
I wipe away the tears that have escaped onto my cheeks and start to strap her in. I wired the machine to a fake antenna on our roof. It's been collecting the electricity of the lightning strikes ever since the storm hit a few hours ago. I can see the charge in the dials. It's high enough now. And that means it's time.
I still cringe a bit as I hook her up to the IV's, and I cringe a lot when I have to plunge the wires into her temples and underneath her skull, at the back of her neck.
Then I walk over to the switch.
It's now or never. My one and only chance to bring back the girl I love.
I close my eyes and pray. Not to God. Not to a Higher Power of any kind actually. I just pray.
And then, with my heart racing and my hands shaking, I flip it down.
The result is instant. Santana's body arches up and starts convulsing as the electricity flows through her. Her arms and legs are twitching violently, the muscles jolted to life, while her spine bends itself at a painful angle. I'm glued to the spot a few feet away, my eyes welling with yet more tears as I watch my past two years of study and meticulous preparations culminate in this single, brutal act.
After the first thirty seconds, I consider just turning it off. The sight of Santana's body fighting against the current is becoming unbearable. I'm gasping for breath and struggling under the combination of fear, emotion and anticipation.
These are the final moments in which I can ask myself whether or not I've done enough to give her the best chance. This is the last time I can wonder if my modest attempts to repair her body were adequate and my calculations for this awful machine were correct... if all the test runs have ensured my success, and if all of this was my destiny, or just some futile endeavor to appease my guilty conscience and broken heart.
The timer on the machine clicks, stopping the electrical charge running through the wires automatically. I let out a shaky breath in the sudden silence.
Seconds seem like hours as I wait for a sign.
When nothing changes, and that bitter dread begins to seep into my chest, I take a timid step forward. I make my way over to her so that I see her face. I lean over to touch her cheek tenderly...
But then she lets out a loud gasp and her eyes fly open.
I fall backwards onto the floor from the shock.
Did it really work? Is she really alive?
I scramble back to my feet as fast as I can manage. Her dulled brown eyes are searching the room wildly. She's struggling in her restraints.
"San... Santana?"
She pauses, her attention suddenly focusing in on me.
"Brittany? W-Where am I? It hurts."
I can't hold it in. I break down in heaving sobs. It's been so long since I heard her voice... my name on her lips... even if it doesn't sound exactly the way I remember it now. It cuts straight to my core.
"I... I brought you back." I cry. "You were gone but... I brought you back to me."
As I take hold of her face, I notice the way she's struggling to breathe, her eyebrows furrowed deeply and her jaw tensed like she's in pain.
"It's gonna be okay." I assure her, placing one hand on her chest while the other wipes haphazardly at my dripping nose. "It'll take some time to adjust... You were gone for a long time and... you're body isn't exactly the way it used to be."
She's shaking her head before I can even finish speaking. An abrupt cough heaves from her chest and sprays my sleeve with blood. She looks horrified.
"What did you do to me? Why does it hurt so much?" I can see the way she's writhing on the table, her fists clenching and her toes curling. "It's not right. None of this is r-right." She coughs again. This time a small piece of flesh flies out and hits my apron.
I panic. "No... No, this is fine. I can fix it... I fixed you once and I can fix you again. I just gotta... I just gotta..." I falter. I have no idea what to do. There's such agony in her eyes and on her face.
I can't help but think she's right. Something has gone very, very wrong in all this. Did I not mend her lungs properly? Did I not keep her body at the right temperature?
"B... You... You have to make it stop." She groans, her feet kicking at the table. "Please... It's too much."
"But I fixed you..." I reply feebly. I don't know what to do now.
Santana's finally here again, awake, but everything is still falling to pieces. Her once vibrant brown eyes are now cloudy and lifeless. Her skin seems much paler and thinner. I can see the way her veins stick out, prominent and sickly blue. Even her hair, which used to be so thick and soft, now looks spindly and dry to the touch.
She's not my Santana anymore.
But I refuse to accept it.
I've worked too long and too hard. And at last, she's with me again. I have to find a way.
She screams, interrupting my waking-coma, and bucks against the restraints. "Please... I can't take it anymore. Let me go."
"I don't know what to do." I offer, numb.
"Kill me!" Santana yells. "Set me free... This isn't how it's supposed to go."
"Kill you?" I cry in disbelief. "I lost you once Santana. I couldn't survive without you. Everything was cruel and dark and pointless." I shake my head. "No... You're here now and... I'm never going to lose you again."
"I can't stay here!" She pleads. "Please Brittany, if you love me, you'll... you'll make it stop." Blood has started dribbling from the corner of her mouth. It's stained her teeth red.
In my head, I know she's right. I have to end this. Because I never should have brought her back in the first place. I had no right to try and combat the laws of nature... the natural order of the universe itself. Santana was where she belonged, even though it wasn't with me.
And now, I have to pay for my selfishness.
My already splintered heart is seared by the image of her lying broken and ruined on the table.
I'm a monster.
"Okay..." I touch her cheek softly and nod. "You're gonna be home soon." I bend to press a quivering kiss to her forehead. "And when you wake up, this will all just be a bad dream, okay?"
Her lips seem to ghost into a smile. It's barely there, but I smile back anyways through the tears.
I reach behind me for the heavy wrench I had been using to adjust my machine.
"I'm s-so sorry baby... I hope you can forgive me." I brush my fingers over her eyes, making her close them as she continues to choke and convulse. "I love you Santana."
I lift my arm up, and with a final sob, I bring it down in one strong blow.
It's enough.
Everything is quiet again.
Your garden grave, I'd climb inside, hold your bones and slowly die...
I carry her body outside through the pouring rain. I dig a place for her in the backyard, under the tree we planted when we first moved in.
We were going to put a bench underneath so we could sit out here together on sunny days and just watch the world go by.
I ignore the thunderstorm still raging over head. I pay no mind to the way my clothes are soaked and my skin is burning from the cold.
I lay her down gently in the ground before climbing in beside her. I know I don't deserve to hold her again, after everything that I've done. I was so foolish to think I could change things.
It was a terrible mistake... and now all that's left for me is to let go. All I can think about is how I want to follow her into the unknown. I can't be somewhere she's not. I can't last another day in this hell I've made for myself.
Besides, it's what I deserve.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the scalpel I've used dozens of times before.
It's easy to know where and how to cut after all those medical journals I read.
The instant rush of blood feels like freedom. It's steady and warm.
And when the edges of my vision start to grow black, I just remember the way it felt to fall asleep surrounded by her softness.
Like petals pressed in sheets making love to moonlight in our sleep...
When I wake, it's to the press of white on my eyelids and the scent of her perfume.
At first I'm sure it was all just some twisted nightmare. I'm back in our bed, alone, and grasping at pillows that I wish more than anything could fill the constant aching in my chest.
But then a gentle hand slips over my stomach and draws me in. I don't even need to open my eyes to know it's her. I would know the perfect curve of her body at my back anywhere.
"Please tell me I'm not dreaming."
"No B. You're not dreaming."
The echo of her beautiful voice in my ear makes me laugh in relief. "So this is real?"
"Who's to say what's real and what's not?" She teases, and I can hear the grin in her voice. "Besides, does it matter?"
"No. As long as you're here, and I never have to leave, nothing else is important." I twine my fingers between hers and squeeze, just to make sure.
She doesn't disappear. I feel her smile against my back.
"Stay with me forever?" I whisper.
"And always."