Disclaimer: I don't own the movie The Princess and the Frog. It belongs to Disney.
OK so I finally stopped sulking and wrote something. I actually wrote this months ago, a bit after PatF was released, but didn't have the nerve to publish it until now.
It's my first PatF fanfic ever, so please forgive me if I didn't quite capture the essence of the characters. I feel that Charlotte and her dad are kinda OOC, but this was a sad story, so I had to make them like that.
I would also like to say that I'm aware that there must be plenty of grammar mistakes around here, but English is not my first language. If you notice a scandalous mistake, please do tell me so that I won't do it again.
So, after watching PatF, I started to wonder what Charlotte's mom was like, and came up with this. It's just a sad little one-shot written for fun and practise. But I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. Constructive criticism is much welcome.
Little Lottie sat in her room, trying to amuse herself with dolls and storybooks she still couldn't read, but only stare at the pictures.
For the first time in her short life, she wasn't able to sink deep in her world of fairytales and forget about everything else. For the first time in her pink and oh-so-perfect life, there was something in her innocent mind other than toys and pretty dresses.
There was a knock on the door, and right after that her father stepped inside her room. She avoided his eyes. She knew he would have that defeated and sad expression on his face, and she hated that. She hated the fact that her daddy wasn't always perfect and amusing. She kept observing his feet and comparing the color of his shoes to the different tones of pink and purple on the carpet, until he spoke:
"How is my princess today?"
Lottie looked up at him, and her little heart sank in her chest. Big Daddy LaBouff, the most powerful man in Louisiana, her hero and role model, looked twenty years older than he did the last time she'd seen him, and absolutely miserable as well. His voice was tired and his eyes were red, but still he was smiling at her.
Lottie wanted to say that she was fine, but she couldn't find the will to do that. Instead, she asked the question that she had been rehearsing earlier in that morning, as though it was a very difficult line from a Shakespearian play:
"How is mommy?"
His smile fell; he knew that this question would come sooner or later, but he'd had a silly hope that it would just remain unspoken. Every time of the day Charlotte seemed to question him with her eyes, her gestures, her silence. Now he couldn't avoid answering.
"Mommy is feeling much better" he said, instantly regretting it. He had to be sincere with his daughter, even if she was just a child and the truth was just too painful. It would do no good to give her false hopes; she would suffer even more later.
"She wants to see you" LaBouff said, trying to sound more serious and at the same time cheerful, failing miserably. He picked Lottie in his arms and sat on the large bed with her on his lap.
"Why don't you put on your new dress? Mommy would like to see you in it."
She nodded silently, jumping from his lap and running to her closet to get her dress. It looked like the most beautiful, princess-like dress in the world when her father gave it to her, but right now it looked just plain dull. She hurriedly put it on and cleaned imaginary rugs from the skirt. Big Daddy lifted her in his arms and walked out of the room.
Outside the pink room it was dark, and only a lonely candle on the other side of the corridor broke the blackness. With every step of her daddy, Lottie noticed how distant her pink, illuminated room was now. A quick feeling of unreasonable horror overtook her, and for a moment she thought she was going to fade.
But soon they were right beside the candle, and the dim light provided Lottie some comfort. When she realized that her father was turning down the knob of door of her mother's room, she felt a sudden urge to ask him to close the door, to let her stay close to the warm light of the candle and not take her into that dark room, to hold her tight and let her pretend everything was alright.
But before she could even find the right words to voice her wishes, they were inside the room, leaving the light behind. In the faint light, she could only see the forms of the objects in the room. She scanned all of them: the big chair, the vanity table with its mirror reflecting the candle, which from this distance, and on the glass of the mirror, seemed to be floating in the darkness; the wardrobe that she couldn't see in the dark but which she was sure to be there. The colorful pattern of the carpet suddenly seemed very interesting for her. She kept her gaze on the floor, her eyes avoiding the bed and the woman laying on it, covered by a thin sheet.
"Lottie?" a weak voice asked, and Charlotte was forced to look up at her mother.
She actually didn't look as bad as Lottie expected; she was a bit pale, but her hair was elegantly pinned up as usual, and she was wearing an expensive satin nightdress. Lottie immediately felt warmed up by this sight; maybe her daddy hadn't lied when he said that her mother was feeling better.
"Come here, Lottie" Juliette LaBouff said, reaching out her arms for her daughter.
Lottie impatiently threw her arms around her mother's neck while her father put her on the bed. She buried her nose in her mother's arm, smelling the delicious perfume she was always wearing, completely unaware of how painful it was for her mother to simply keep her arms wrapped around her child without falling from the bed. Her whole body was aching, and her lungs hurt when she breathed. She feared it would be the last time she would hug her sweet Lottie.
"Daddy said you're getting better" said Lottie. "Is it true? When will you be well enough to play with me again?"
That innocent question, without any malice from or bad intentions, made Juliette's heart break. Her little child still had no idea of what was death, and she was afraid Lottie would discover it very soon in the worst possible way.
"I am perfectly fine, darling" she said, feeling as though she had stabbed herself in the stomach. One day Charlotte would realize that her mother had lied to her and would be extremely hurt and confused, but right now Juliette just wanted to ease her daughter's sorrow. She never wanted to have to see her Lottie sad again.
And I'm probably getting that wish too, she thought, feeling a chill run down her spine. Juliette held her daughter tighter against her chest. She was aware that Lottie would suffer for her later, but she decided she could allow herself a moment of selfishness before dying. Right now, she didn't want to think about all the things she told her daughter that weren't true. She just wanted to have her little Lottie in her arms one last time.