All That's Left of Yesterday

A/N: I own nothing, except my cat. But let's face it, she really owns me so truth be told I own nothing. Also I know I misgendered LaFontaine but since this story is from Perry's POV and she hasn't had the convo with LaF yet, it didn't seem right... so I'm sorry if this offends any of you.

If I smile and don't believe

Soon I know I'll wake from this dream

Don't try to fix me, I'm not broken

Hello, I'm the lie living for you so you can hide

Don't cry

All around her was darkness. Saturated with a haze that she couldn't see, but she sure as hell could feel. It flowed around her like water, caressing her skin and settling in her hair, weighing it down with a weight that couldn't belong to tiny suspended water particles. She tried moving, shifting her body away from the all-encompassing fog that was so present that she could actually see it in her mind's eye. Wait… could she actually see it? Was the darkness dissipating?

Suddenly she knew without a doubt that the darkness was the lesser of two evils. Yes, it was dissipating but the price was far too great. The swiftly swirling fog encircled her in a ferocious vortex of oppression and she knew that when it finally died down, she wouldn't be able to hide any longer. It always happened this way, not that she ever remembered it until it was too late. Like now.

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing it to all just go away, to just be a figment of her imagination. The deafening silence that had been created slowly faded away into noise. The background noise that one never notices until it isn't there. And then once it shows back up again it suddenly becomes as loud as rock concert.

No. No. No. No. NO. She screamed as the fog lifted, leaving her in too familiar surroundings. This was a place she refused to allow to exist. It had been imprisoned in that place in her mind where things went when they were to disappear, to blink out of existence, to cease being. Yet here she was. NO!

She was twelve again, riding her bike down the road as she raced Susan home from school, like they did every day. The feeling of the wind against her face and of her hair flying behind her as she desperately tried to catch up to her best friend.

"SUSAN!" she yelled, trying to get her to slow down just a bit so that they weren't so far apart. Her fellow redhead was almost two houses ahead of her and that was just too much distance. She tried pedaling faster but as she did, she felt a tug at her left foot and then a yank that almost unseated her.

"SUSAN?" she shrieked, the fear bringing her voice to a previously unheard of decibel and pitch. She was barely able to prevent herself being pitched from the bike before she was able to slow it some, let alone keep from falling from it once she did. Her left shoelace was caught up in the chain ring and she was unable to do anything as she fell. Susan, hearing her screams, pulled up short. It took her less than a second to assess the situation and drop her bike, catapulting into a sprint towards Lola.

Lying on the ground, half under her bike with pain shooting up the entire left side of her body, Lola thinks the day can't get any worse. And then she hears them, the sounds that haunt her every unguarded moment. The sounds of screeching tires, of a horn blaring, of a thud…

"NO!" she yells into the swirling fog that once again surrounds her. "I WON'T RELIVE THAT MOMENT AGAIN!"

The fog gets thicker around her and she's thrust into another painful scene.

She's being guided into the stuffy room by her father's hand which is resting on her shoulder that's not in a sling. Tears are silently running down her face as she takes in the room full of strangers, many of whom are speaking in a language she can't understand. She knows its German, Susan can speak… She can't keep the sobs back as they rip themselves from her throat…

Could speak. Susan could speak German and had been trying to teach Lola a few phrases but… that would never happen now.

Suddenly she realized that she standing in front of Mr. and Mrs. LaFontaine and she can see the grief emanating from them, see it in the tear tracks on Mrs. Laf's cheeks and in the raspy-ness and wavering of Mr. Laf's voice as he greets her.

It breaks her.

"It's all my fault. I'm so sorry. If only I had made sure my shoe was tied, this never would have happened…" She cried as she felt her knees go week, the tears becoming a torrent as her speech deteriorates into a repetitious chant of "I'm sorry", "my fault", and "if only".

"Oh honey" Mrs. LaFontaine says as she sinks to her knees and hugs the broken child in front of her to her chest, running her fingers through her hair trying to sooth her . "This isn't your fault. No one blames you. Accidents happen…"

Smoke swirls around her again and the scene is blown away like leaves on the wind, replaced by another one just as poignant as the others.

The sunlight is soft and muted, warming the world without actually making it hot. The leaves rustle in the gentle wind as the birds sing their songs, creating the perfect background noise for almost any other occasion. The day is too perfect for the laying in the ground of a child just barely given the chance to grow. Lola feels like it is mocking them and she hates it. After the reception, Lola had gotten her parents to drop her off at the cemetery with the promise that she'd be waiting for them by the gate in a half hour. She just needed to spend some time with Susan all by herself.

Susan. All that she had left of her best friend was the mound of freshly patted down dirt that covered her final resting place. She lay down on top of the patch of dirt, not caring how dirty she got, and wept. At some point, she wasn't sure when, she started telling Susan of all the things they would have grown up and done together through her tears. She told Susan of the plans she had made for her next birthday, which was only 7 weeks away; of their first day of high school and of all the great adventures they'd have had during those next four years. She told her of the pranks they'd have played on their parents and of the all the great things they would have done once they became adults. She told her of small insignificant details from their past and made up stories on how they would have connected to them years from now.

"You know Susan, this may seem weird, but whenever anyone mentions my future hypothetical wedding, I always picture you. I don't know, that's probably weird right? Well, I don't know I guess. All I know is that I never imagined us apart, ya know?"

"Truth be told, I saw it that way too," Whispered a voice in her ear that she knew all too well.

"Susan?!" She shrieked, rolling over and sitting up as fast as humanly possible. Looking around she saw no one, not a single person in the entire cemetery. "Susan…" she whimpered, putting her head in her hands and shuddering as a fresh wave of tears overcame her.

"Hey Perr, I'm here." Comes the voice again, accompanied by a weird tingly feeling on her good shoulder. Whipping her head around so fast she gives herself whiplash, she finds herself staring into the face of her best friend.

"SUSAN!" she yelled as she launched herself into a tackling bear hug. Before she knows it, she's nose first in the ground with her broken arm feeling like it's on fire. "Oowww" She moans into the grass that surrounds the fresh grave.

"It would appear that giving a ghost a hug is about as easy as catching fish with your bare hands." Giggles Susan.

Without warning the world starts to shudder and shake and as it does it falls apart and away, leaving Perry in a void of darkness accompanied by a voice she can't quite make out despite its all-encompassing loudness. Another shake and she's pulled from the darkness completely and back into reality.

Opening her eyes, she finds herself in a room she knows but can't quite place. The lights are off and its dark out but above her she can make out the outline of a girl. She takes in a shaky breathe as she sits up in the bed and unexplained tears escape from her eyes.

"It was just a dream Perry, it was just a dream." Carmilla says as she awkwardly rubs her hand up and down Perry's arm, trying to soothe her and ground her as she cries but not quite knowing how. As Perry opens her eyes she can hear Carmilla all but choke on her words as they get stuck in her throat. The look she is receiving from the vampire makes Perry feel like her soul is being read. And she thinks that maybe it actual is.

"It wasn't a dream." She whispers, her voice cracking from the effort of attempting to restrain her tears. "They were memories."

The startling reality of what the memories mean crashes into Perry like a tsunami. The memories had been so easy to forget once they moved here to Silas. Here where LaFontaine could be seen by everyone and seemed to be corporeal. Here where no one knew. Here where LaFontaine was just another student. Silas made it so easy to not only ignore the memories, but to banish them to the dark corner of her mind where she never wandered. So easy to deny that Susa… LaFontaine was dead.

Her breathing is labored as she tries to keep herself from going into a panic attack. In a last ditch effort, she pulls Carmilla into a hug and buries her head into her shoulder. Carmilla lets out an "oomph" of air as she stiffens in Perry's hold. Minutes pass before the vampire even moves and when she does it's to hesitantly pat her back. Dropping the hug, Perry pulls her knees up to her chest and starts to rock back and forth on Laura's bed as she tries to say the words she hasn't said out loud in years. She opens her mouth to say them several times but each time the words get stuck and she closes her lips in frustrating.

Eventually, she looks away from the girl she's trying to talk to and shifts her gaze to the tiny freshman asleep in the bed across the room. Somehow, looking at Laura gives her back her voice.

"LaFontaine… is dead." Perry mummers as she turns and meets Carmilla's gaze. "Has been for years. She's a ghost Carmilla."

"I know." These words come after an excruciating long moment of silence. Perry's eyes flash with confusion as they silently ask how. There is a tenderness to her voice as she continues, tinged with something akin to anguish. "LaF doesn't have a heartbeat. That's usually the first thing I notice about a person. A heartbeat says so much…" She trails off and looks out the window at the stars. "Laf doesn't have a heartbeat, but sometimes…. I swear you have two."