Disclaimer: I do not own.
A/N: This is a mini-fic based on my major fic, Honor Saga. In this AU, Belle is killed over a Guild feud, leaving her daughter in Gambit's care. Due to the sudden violence of her death and her desire to live, Belle's spirit cannot pass over. Only Honor is aware of her mother's ghost, and decides to hook up with Sinister to acquire a body for her mother. This is the story from Belle's POV.
Belle's Ghost
There was violence; a great, unbearable pain, and then nothing.
I'd been close to death before, so I knew what the door looked like. When I was a young woman, there was an enemy I couldn't defeat alone. I asked my ex for help, and he didn't disappoint. He saved our clans, our Guilds, but he couldn't save me. I did not want to die, but I was so sure I would. I slipped into a coma, but ultimately survived. Besides that, there were many times when I thought I was much closer to death than I really was. I've made many promises to God if only He would spare my life this one time…
I'll be a better daughter.
I'll be a better woman.
I'll be a better mother.
But death was sudden and unexpected.
I saw my body: neck broken, eyes open, limbs twitching. I desperately tried to reclaim it, but that body was gone.
I had to move on.
I faded into nothingness: a place lost souls often go. I call it Limbo, although my daughter would've called it the time-between-time. There was nothing to see or describe, I only remember hearing my father's voice beckon me.
"Bella Donna… Are you ready to come home?"
No, my soul answered. Honor still needs me.
I thought I would return to life, but my body was long buried. I saw my own tombstone: next to my brother and father and grandparents. Funny, I always thought myself beyond the fear of death. When I was seventeen, Remy and I visited a graveyard at night. He saw a tombstone with his name: a boy with his age and name had been killed in the Civil War, and it drove him away like garlic to a vampire. I laughed at him until I pissed myself. But now I understood exactly how he felt.
The next thing I saw was my daughter lighting a candle in a cathedral. Johnny kneeled beside her, and they prayed in silence. I didn't recognize the building. Why weren't they in New Orleans?
My sweet little girl… So socially awkward I sometimes hoped she had nothing of her father's personality. But she was so beautiful. She had her father's black and red eyes, my brother's strong jaw line, and my freckled nose. She was at the end of childhood, and her limbs were too long and thin. It was an odd charm, but it was hers. Beneath her skin, her heart cried out so painfully that I could feel it. Our hearts were always in sync. When I carried her, I could feel her little heart in my womb like a hummingbird. After she was born, her little heart fluttered against my breast while she slept. As a child, her heart beat matched my own pattern. Before I passed, her heart was Assassin-strong beneath her training bra. But her heart was always tender: so soft and sweet you would weep to feel it.
It made me weep, anyway, and I'd endured worse.
Suddenly, she lifted her eyes and looked around.
'I'm here, chere!' I shouted.
She looked right through me. She kept looking around.
I faded away again, thinking I would return to Heaven this time. But no one ever appeared to me or asked me again.
The next time I saw Honor, she was sleeping in a hotel room with Johnny. He was sleeping, too, in a narrow bed across the room. She looked so grown-up now with her long, strawberry-blond locks and unsmiling face. She needed her own room.
On second thought… In a place like this, best to have her close to Johnny.
I shouldn't have disturbed her, but I missed her so much. I wanted her to know I hadn't left her: she was safe. So I sat by her bed all night, speaking to her. I focused all my energy on making my voice and touch real, and finally I made progress. The hair on her arms folded under my touch. Encouraged, I stroked her hair. I couldn't feel her, but the hair moved.
Maybe she could feel me!
I stroked her pretty face, her pretty hair. When she slept, she looked like a baby doll: I'd never told her that. I'd watch her sleep as an infant – sure if I fell asleep, she'd float away or die – and I just knew my little girl was the prettiest child in the world. Why had I ever stopped watching her sleep? She was still the prettiest girl on earth. When had she grown up? Had I missed it during my life, or had she grown up since my death?
She shook her head and swatted me away.
I smiled and kept touching her. Wake up, chere. Feel me. Desperate, I pushed the hair from her ear (it moved!) and whispered: 'I'll never leave you.'
She gasped and shot up in bed. Panicked now, her eyes darted around in the dark. Of course, she couldn't see me, and I felt guilty for frightening her.
"Momma?" She whispered, crying. "Momma is dat you?"
She looked me dead in the eye.
I should've held her, kissed her, told her how much I would always love her… But I was as startled as if she were the ghost. We just looked at each other for a long time: neither moved nor exhaled. The edges of her started to fade away. I wasn't really sure if I could still see her or not. Finally, she faded away into shadow. Sometimes I thought I imagined the whole thing.
This time when I faded into Limbo, I was greeted by a man.
'That's enough, Belle. You done good. Time t' let her go.'
Julien!
Tears poured down my face when my eyes received my late brother. He'd been killed by my foolish words, but he was just as handsome as ever. He was young and strong, and that bitter restlessness always present in him was gone. Now he was at peace. I hadn't known him to have peace since our father passed away, and I yearned to become re-acquainted with him.
I wanted to run to him, but Honor beckoned me.
"Momma? Please don't leave me…"
She was sitting in the back of Johnny's pick-up truck. It was night-time and she was alone. I certainly wouldn't leave her under these conditions!
Suddenly, our lovely world was shattered.
LeBeau.
My heart broke. Despite all I'd done to protect her, she'd still gone to him! He would lie to her: tell her I was a bad mother for keeping him away. She would grow up to hate me. And when she'd had enough of his lies to figure him out, she'd be as bitter and jaded as he'd made me.
'Come on, Belle,' Julien beckoned. 'She be all right now.'
I looked across the river between life and death. I was in a small boat, which was still tethered to the land of the living. On the opposite shore stood my brother, father, and grandparents. Strange that the Church tells people St. Peter will greet them to eternity. It is your clan who welcomes you…
I thought I'd gone home.
I didn't think I'd see Honor again until I welcomed her at the river bank.
Then I heard her screaming for me.
'Momma! Momma! Mooomm-mmmaaa!'
I was alive again! Trapped inside science's womb, I had a body nonetheless. Tubes penetrated my limbs, and a single, large tube provided air to my mouth and nasal passaged. Rather stupidly, I tore these things away before I tried to escape my incubator. The plastic broke away easily enough for a hysterical mother, and I stumbled through a darkened laboratory towards the source of the screams. This was the not the body that had given birth to my daughter… It was the body she gave life to.