A/N: Sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, I get unnecessarily emotional about fictional characters and decide to pour my feelings in a fanfiction. This is actually my first Repo! fanfiction, and it's a Mag-centered One-Shot with mostly boring character introspection where no actions happen, because this is what I believe I do best. Obviously, none of the characters used/mentioned are mine so this is the mandatory disclaimer that I obviously do not own Repo!, or any of the characters appearing in this story, and make no claim to do so whatsoever. This is set pre-opera and, more specifically, pre-Seeing You Stirs Memories (so Mag logically thinks Shilo still dead). I also feed on constructive criticism, in case any of you guys might want to review :3
It was a simple equation, something easy enough even a blind could understand without seeing – People fundamentally longed for what they could not have, what was out of their reach. They longed for the fame, the glamour, the sparkles – The things they saw plastered onto huge billboards across Sanitarium Island. The things she was selling. Her whole existence was merely a broad, scintillating public relations stunt, a fake life with fake eyes and a horde of admirers that worshipped the grounds she walked on purely because they were told to. They should cherish her. They should envy her. They should want to be like her. And because people desperately longed for what they could not have, and because her all existence was fake in such a believable way, they all rushed to GeneCo begging for surgery, for talent, for anything that would make them special, make them satiate that unbearable longing, make their life undeniably more worthwhile and happier. Except, of course, that like everything in Mag's life, this was all a huge stunt from public relations. Mag knew that, she knew nothing could ever stop the longing and what she had to offer could not make these people happier – not truly. It was all part of the distorted, wretched human condition, and the best she had to offer was to relieve some of them of it all, if only for a brief time, by her singing – To help people forget. Her eyes might be GeneCo's, and her whole existence and song choices might have been dictated by Rotti Largo, but her feelings were still her own to gift to others. And so Mag played her part dutifully and tried to save what little she could and forget who she had failed.
She had failed Marni – Arguably, Marni had failed her, too. It had always been themselves against the world, and she was to be married to Rotti and Mag would have been there, she would have seen her best friend walk down the isle and held Marni's first born and both their voices would have melted together so perfectly as they always did and nothing would have been wrong, because even if Mag had signed off her life to GeneCo, Marni would have been part of the deal. Except, of course, that Marni met Nathan and broke off her engagement to Rotti and of course Rotti had always been all wrong for warm, idealistic Marni and of course Mag was beyond happy for her friend and Nathan, but this was never what Mag had expected. This was not part of their plan. And so Marni died, and Mag never got to see her best friend's first born, and she never got to keep her promise and take care of Shilo. At times, she replayed memories of her friend, gloriously singing, over and over and over again. Yield for nothing. It had not seemed like an advice, at the time, but merely as words sung in a song that did not do Marni's soprano coloratura justice – And now it felt painfully raw, like poking at old wounds that would never heal, because that was one more of the things Marni used to say that Mag was incapable to live by. She could only replay it all, over and over again, seeing but incapable to touch.
By failing Marni, she had undeniably failed Nathan – Then again, he had failed her first, too, by cutting her out of his life when they both desperately needed each other's company, but Mag could understand. It was painful for her, too. And Nathan never called, never tried to seek her out anymore and Mag had lost the two friends she ever truly had in the snap of a finger and none of this would have happened had she been a bit more like Marni. Nathan needed her, despite his best efforts to keep her out of his life, but she had been so hurt and so lost herself that she had numbly let go, without the strength to try harder.
She had failed Shilo, too – And failed the memory of an unborn child was quite possibly on of those things you could never get over with. She should have been there. She had desperately wanted to be there.
Arguably, she had also failed Amber. She had been so young when Mag had started to work for Rotti that perhaps the singer should have tried harder to know her, harder to bond with her – After all, they both enjoyed music. She should have tried with Pavi and Luigi, also, but this was different – They were older, already gone beyond repair at the hand of their father. There had still been some hope for little, big-eyed Carmela, but Mag was grieving and she simply did not have the time or the energy to try more than what was needed and once you realize you are trapped in a cell – no matter how golden or metaphorical it was -, you tend to look outside and not at who is right next to you. You long for things lost, things you cannot have. This was a very real, very human condition, and Mag herself was no more or less than human.
All of this had happened because she had wanted to see.
Except she hadn't – Because while people fundamentally long for what they cannot have, they cannot long for what they cannot see, what they do not know the existence of, purely because such a thing cannot be missed. Mag never felt a lack of sight – She never felt disable. Instead she could pick out food or perfumes solely based on their aroma and would know the feeling of silk on her skin within a second from touching the fabric. She knew of shapes, sounds, forms – She used to marvel at how caring the voice of a mother became when she spoke to her child, at how sincere a 'sorry' could feel in the mouth of someone who truly meant it, at how full and beautiful her own voice sounded when she sang the aria Batti, batti, o bel Masetto from Don Giovanni. These were the little things she picked up on by trying to desperately make up for something others affirmed she lacked, and she would not have given them up for anything. She never had many friends because of this – Even her own family had not been able to understand, too wrapped up that they were with the fact that she could not see. This was, truly, what saddened her – The fact they could not comprehend her made their harshness sting more than anything else, guilt tripping her in the knowledge that she would never be able to see her lover's face – but who would love a blind girl? -, or watch those singers she heard of on a television screen, she could never see the child smile at his mother's soft words, or know what the color blue meant. She had tried to ask what blue was, once, but no one was capable of describing it to her in terms that she would comprehend. It was not the sight that she missed, but the idea she could eventually belong somewhere. Though she never carried her loneliness as a painful curse and quite frankly would have rather be alone than face the mocking rudeness of strangers who feared what they did not understand, she missed simple acts of kindness. She missed being able to walk with her arm around someone else's, letting this someone lead the way without fear of being a burden. Being able to sing helped her through, allowed her to let go of it all if only for a brief moment – And at least people seemed to enjoy when she sang.
And then she met Marni, and everything seemed to go fast – too fast. Now that Mag thought about it all, she wished these blissful moments in Marni's company would have lasted long enough to fill a lifetime. Marni did not seem to care that she was blind – In fact, Marni had this splendid voice that blended so well with Magdalene's it felt like they were speaking a language of their own, when they sang together, and it always sent shrills down Mag's spin and was this how it felt to have a genuine friend? And then, as time went by, it dawned on Mag that perhaps she finally had a life worth seeing – And that it was at the side of people who did not care if she was blind. The contradiction was not lost on her, but she supposed it was human – the human condition. She wanted to be able to watch Marni walk down the isle and remember her dress not because of the fabric but because of how gorgeous her friend looked in it. She wanted to take pictures that would last her a lifetime, because people always said that pictures lasted longer, and though she would never forget Marni's voice she also wanted to remember her face, and the face of her fiancé, and how slightly crooked the smile of Marni's firstborn would be, and Mag wanted colors and huge, chaotic messes of shapes and sceneries and to share what she had never felt she needed until now and she was certain it would all be worth it. She had not known how much she wanted this until it became possible to obtain, until Rotti found her cure – And Mag remembered how grateful she had been that her best friend's fiancé was so dedicated to them and to his work and it was possible, Mag could almost touch it. She would have done anything, then – Anything at all to be able to see, despite the fact she had never needed to, for the sake of not forgetting those happy moments. It had been a very selfish decision, and Marni had been so scared Mag would be disappointed by how everything – how she – would look like, but Mag had not cared and when she finally opened her eyes after her operation, she could see colors. And the world was a blur, because what did you expect after getting new eyes, but it all seemed bright and shiny and wonderful. When her vision cleared, she spent days roaming the city, asking about colors and shapes and finally putting images to objects and finally, finally, understanding the color blue. Everything was new, everything was exciting and full of promises and new longings she never knew she had – because she could not want what she could not see -.
Marni did not disappoint her.
Too caught up in this whirlwind of sight, too caught up in trying to remember every moments, the girl who had gained sight was completely blind to the fact the very life she had deemed worth seeing was crumbling down to pieces from the inside. Before she knew it, Marni was dead, and she had not nearly enough pictures, not nearly enough videos, not nearly enough memories of those happier times when the both of them were smiling and singing and when Marni looked so utterly free and alive next to Nathan Wallace that Mag thought this was the kind of happiness she wanted. All she had left was a song. Chase the morning…
Her own human condition had hit Mag like a freight train, without her being able to see it.
And now, her whole existence was a lie she sold to those who laid victims of the same paradox.
It would not go on for much longer, though – And this felt more like a relief than anything had since she had gained her sight. Blind Mag, beloved Voice of GeneCo, would be retiring after the next Genetic Opera, and the woman was perfectly aware of the fact this was actually her signing away her death sentence. She welcomed this like one would welcome an old friend, with open arms and a serene expression, because dying meant she would not see anymore and, while she had not seen nearly enough, her eyes had never been more open than when she had been blind. Now all that was left was the longing.
Perhaps she would find a way to show GeneCo they never truly owned her, in the end – But that meant being more than human, and Mag had yet to find how to do such a thing and had to leave now for the fair, for fear of running late.
Mag was, after all, fundamentally human – And there was no greater contradiction, no bigger irony than the human condition.