Title: The Other Way
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters here or the material of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. This work was created for fun and not for profit.
Fandom: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV Series)
Pairings: None - Gen
Warnings: Attempted Murder/Suicide
Description: Ambrose's words inspire something different in Sabrina. The confrontation of Sabrina's mandrake double, played out differently.
A/N: I fully believe the producers missed an opportunity with this scene. It could have been more. So I wrote that. Spoilers for new episodes ahead. Rated M only for the fact that the scene starts out with Sabrina's full intentions to commit murder (or suicide, depending on how you see it). Otherwise, this work is very largely K+.
The Other Way
"It's like a newborn," Ambrose said. "It has all your wants and needs. To be loved, to be safe…"
• • •
The pistol was hard and cold in her grip. Sabrina took a step forward.
"Two."
Chill, night air kissed goosebumps into her skin. She hardly felt it, the riot of emotions twisting and racing inside of her disregarding all else, an internal hurricane she was caught in the middle of.
The moon, wide as an open eye, glinted sadly over them, Her aura washing the clearing in a faint light. Sabrina heard the movement of indifferent creatures in the woods, the rustle of leaves and the creak of twigs. She felt the cold sweat clinging to her skin, humid inside her coat, wet around her grip of the pistol. She felt the twist and turns of her emotions, coiling inside her head, her chest, her throat. She swallowed.
Was there really no other way?
"Three."
The prophecy, the mural, flashed inside her head as she took another step. Her grip tightened, her lips pressed together in a firm, red line.
She couldn't let the Dark Lord win. She couldn't let the prophecy pass. She had to fight it, every step of the way, any way she could; she was grappling with her destiny, and she couldn't afford to lose. Even if it meant giving up a part of herself.
"Four."
But what about her? What about the mandrake-half? Ambrose had said it was still a part of her; it desired what she desired, it needed what she needed… And it had her magic. Magic, a coiling inside of her, pleasant and familiar; like the warm, sweet milk and honey her Aunt Hilda had made for her when she was little and sick… It was as much of her as her skin, her veins, her blood.
She hadn't let them known, but after she had told them what had happened and found her first private moment with herself, she had let it hit her. Horror, revulsion, a sense of wrong so deep it came from the most instinctive, primal part of herself… Sabrina had closed her eyes and leaned against her closed bedroom door, her arm thrown over her face. She was too exhausted, too worried to cry, but she felt she would, after everything was over. After she killed her half, prevented the prophecy, and everything was fine and safe and normal. She would cry and she never would quite stop.
"Five."
Ambrose's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She stumbled another step, almost falling over her own feet. She felt Ambrose's gaze in her direction, a question and a concern in his attention. She stood up straighter, squeezing the pistol in her grip. She had to show him she was fine.
But his count reminded her of where she was, what she was doing, and suddenly she wasn't so certain about her decision anymore. She felt her knees weakening, shaking, and her hands had grown loose around the pistol.
If she killed the mandrake-half – her other half – she would be destroying that forever. Her magic. Her father's inheritance; the last thing he had left her, before he and her mother died. She would be destroying something, killing something alive. And she had done that before, but this time, it felt different to her. In a sense… in a sense… she would be killing herself.
But she had to sacrifice whatever she could, whoever she was, to stop the prophecy from happening. And if left unchecked, her double would do just that - perform the last perversion and bring it all down around them. She had to stop that from happening. She had to kill her.
"Six."
She's like an infant… Ambrose's words repeated themselves in her head.
There had to be another way, hadn't there?
"Seven."
Her double had asked that, too. And there really is no other way? She had asked, in that strange, high voice of her's that somehow hadn't seemed like Sabrina's at all, her face open and wanting. She was like a little girl who had been beginning to expect refusal each time she asked for something, expectation falling as her disappointment rose.
She looked like Sabrina, and in every other way she did not. Her clothing – and Sabrina didn't know if it was symbolic of her double's nature, in some way – the brown, black and blue plaid vest, the long-sleeved blue dress shirt and the black ribbon, so different to what Sabrina would usually wear. More than clothing, though, it was a deep sense of other; her doppelganger was childlike, seen in how easily she and Ambrose had fooled her; and that hatred, belittling of herself, her mortal half… It was every prejudice, every deeper, more insecure, more self-hateful part of herself.
But it was also every innocent fragment, her raw desires skinned bare, given form. She was an infant in mind and heart, and infants could be nurtured, their nature changed.
"Eight."
Had Ambrose's counting sped up? Did he feel her hesitation? As if called on by the thought, the acknowledgement of what was rushing through her, her next step was smaller, reluctant. She lowered the pistol to her side.
"Nine."
Sabrina stopped completely and threw herself flat to the forest floor, throwing the pistol somewhere far to her side. She felt dirt dig at her knees, grit sharp against her palms, as she lowered her head against the ground and waited.
"Ten. Sabrina–"
A shot rang out, and Sabrina almost felt the bullet rush past her, felt the deadly metal nick by where her head had been a second earlier.
Moments passed as she waited to feel pain blooming. Instead, she felt the beat of her heart, the rhythm so hard it was as though the organ was trying to pushing through her ribcage for freedom, away from the girl who danced, again and again, with death. She panted for a few more moments, and when she stood up she stumbled a bit, hands gracing her body.
No blood. No bullet hole. Her double had missed her.
"Aww, no fair! You ducked! That's cheating."
Sabrina turned around to see her mandrake-half crossing her arms, pouting. She held the pistol loosley in one hand, pointed away from them both. Suddenly Sabrina was aware of the emptiness in her hands. She'd abandoned her own pistol on the forest floor. If she played her cards right, she hadn't just signed her own death sentence with that mistake.
"Sabrina…" Ambrose said. She held up a hand, instead, her palm flat.
Let me talk first.
"I changed my mind," Sabrina called out, her voice loud and bright in the night air.
The moon, which had been concealed through a curtain of cloud, brightened suddenly. Moonlight lit the clearing like fire, and Sabrina could see the face of her double in a sharp outline, the panes of her face casting shadows; it was an odd, dramatic contrast, the darkness of her face against the innocent pouting of a child.
"But you can't change your mind," her double said, stepping closer. She sounded indignant, as if the sacred rules of the world had been broken. "We had an agreement."
Sabrina walked to her, her voice calm and resolute. "I know. I'm sorry," she said, as if she was speaking to a very young child. And she was, really, in a sense. "But I don't want to kill you. Not anymore. I can't do that to myself... to you. No matter what." Only as she spoke the words did she realise how true they rang. She had given up her freedom – signed her name in the Beast's Book – to save Greendale. She had died to save the coven from those avenging Angels. She had given up her power, her magic, half of herself, to stop the prophecy and save the world.
She refused to continue siphoning off parts of herself to save everyone. If there was no other way to save them, no other path to take… she would pave a new one herself. She would lay those bricks with her mortal hands and guide them all to another, a better, world.
"Oh," her mandrake-half said, and her arms fell, uncertainty painting her face. "But… but you made me to kill me. I know it. That's why you split us… why you made me." Her tension, which had been building with every step Sabrina took closer to her, suddenly melted. The pistol hung loosely in her hand. Her grip around it tightened as anger rose with the volume of her words.
"I was wrong," Sabrina said. "I was a fool. A desperate fool, who disregarded parts of herself… Siphoned them away… Like they were nothing. Please believe me. I gave us... I gave parts of us... away before. I was wrong. I was blinded by fear." Sabrina folded her hand over the wrist of her double and, gently pulling it towards her, lightly pulled the pistol from her grip. She tossed it on the ground somewhere beside them, not sparing a glance to where it landed. Instead, she held her double's gaze the entire time, watching the same brown eyes she'd seen when she looked in the mirror every day, for sixteen long years. When her double's hands were empty, she took them into her own and held them, cool and fitting.
"I love you," Sabrina said, and clarity almost struck her with the truth of her words. Surprise filled her, and by the way her double's eyes had widened, surprise had caught her by the embrace, too. "I love you," she said again, "and I will pave a new path for us to take. No more. No more will we give up parts of ourselves. I am Sabrina Spellman, and if I can have power, then I can have both the world and you, too."
Silence bloomed, thick in the air, for a few moments. The double – Sabrina's other-half, her other self – considered her for what felt like years, her face uncharacteristically unreadable.
Finally, at last, she spoke. "Okay."
Relief struck Sabrina like lightning, and she almost sagged from the rush of it, feeling as worn and exhausted as a used, twisted rag. She laughed, blinded with ease and joy, her laughter full and bright. Her other half watched her with what seemed like awe, her mouth open in the shape of a full moon and her eyes, just as wide. She joined Sabrina a moment later. From the brightness of her grin and the joy of her eyes, it was the first time her other half had laughed so freely and fully, if the first time she had laughed at all.
Sabrina hugged her, the movement surprising them both. They began laughing again and spinning, embracing each other, and their laughter rang out like music into the night. It was the first time, in a long time, that Sabrina's heart had felt so full.
When they had finished, wiping away tears of joy from their eyes, they turned to Ambrose.
He had stood watching them from the sides all the while. Though the night shrouded his face in darkness, Sabrina saw the glint of similar tears on his cheeks in the moonlight.
He coughed, rubbing his face casually, and yawned in a way Sabrina knew was fake. Still, she allowed him the pretence of his farce.
"So what now?" Ambrose said, coming over to them. In that same moment Sabrina yawned, genuinely, unexpectedly. She blinked at herself.
"Now..." the double said, pausing.
They turned to her, and her hands were still gripping Sabrina's own, her expression calm as it had always been. But… and when Sabrina tilted her head, moonlight growing stronger for a brief moment, she saw it. Something new, something bright, in her other half's eyes. Something had opened, blossomed, there.
"Now," her other half said again, her red lips smiling, "we go home."
The End.
A/N: Thank you for reading.