A/N: Hi lovelies!
So it has been a while. I did post a quick "Getting back in writing!" ficlet quite a while back, but this is the real piece. I hope you'll shoot a review my way.
This setting is, indeed, from "The Haunting at Castle Malloy", as are Kyler and Matt. I might have slightly altered some details; I apologize if it's something that will bother you. I'm currently stuck in the middle of the game (which prompted me to buy "Warning at Waverly Academy" to play with instead...), so don't reveal the ending, please. Well, until I figure out exactly how to move those (*(# stone pillars...
Enough of my rant.
Please leave a review, my dear readers. They always make me smile like an idiot!
Take care!
Title: The Playful Idiot
Rating: K+
Warnings: None
She froze.
It should have been a beneficial thing to her. When Kyler Tegan Mallory, whom she hadn't seen in years, asked her to be her maid of honour at her prestigious wedding all the way in Bailor, Ireland, she had been convinced that it would do her some good. Her father and Hannah had also been pleased and had greatly urged her to go. After everything that had happened, being in the company of a couple in love might bring her mood to new heights.
Nancy really thought so.
She sunk against the wall, her heart hammering painfully as she clutched the wedding invitation in her cold fingers. Kyler and Matt's smiling faces were crumbled as she crushed the paper in a ball, trying to avoid the stinging tears from leaving her eyes.
Matt had vanished. He had disappeared, barely leaving any traces behind. Kyler had immediately begged her to treat this as a case instead of agreeing with the gossip. She was convinced that her fiancé loved her; he had not run away.
After a wobbly smile, Nancy had dashed to the nearest room and had slipped inside, intent on hiding from her old friend. A coppery taste filled her mouth and she had to swallow painfully to keep herself from throwing up the bile that threatened to rise.
She had to take the case; she was Nancy Drew, a detective.
Her mind screamed in pain at her title, rejecting it rapidly, without giving it a chance. Everything about it was wrong. So wrong.
Finally, she risked opening her eyes, then immediately regretted it.
Out of every single room, she had to have stopped in the old nursery. The small pink bed with delicate drapes over it, the rocking horse, the dozens of children's books, the reading chair, the broken mirror, the old fireplace... everything was perfect for a future baby's room. Only now it was dusty with old age, unused in years.
This time, the urge to throw up was more violent, less expected. With a strangled gasp, she managed to swallow it back and pressed her frozen fingers against her burning forehead, shuddering madly.
"You idiot..." Her own voice startled her, and this time, the tears did slip down her face cruelly. "You idiot..."
The flash of pain in Kyler's eyes, when she had discussed her fiancé's lack of presence, had been too much for her to bear. Matt's vanishing had been overshadowed when her own memories had flooded back, and images of soft brown eyes and perfect white teeth under a wave of chocolate-coloured locks had momentarily floated in front of her eyes. For a brief second, she had remembered her own wedding.
Her gown had been perfect. It had been white, the train long and majestic, turning Bess into the most proud bridesmaid on the face of this Earth. The flowers had almost taken over the reception area and the church, basking everything and everyone into a soft scent of roses for hours afterwards.
But he had been her favourite part of the ceremony.
Standing beside his brother as his best man, in a dark suit that made his beautiful eyes even dreamier, was the love of her life. She saw no one but him as she walked down the aisle, where they exchanged rings and vows after a short ceremony.
'Hey, Drew...'
She could almost hear his husky voice, as his face made it clear that he was creating his vows as he went, forgetting the big speech he had recited for days on end.
'I guess I'll have to stop calling you that now...'
A shiver racked through her body. He always had the best sense of humour. Everyone always said that he younger brother of the family was the funny one, but she knew better than that.
'I guess we've had a very interesting relationship. Our first meeting was to discuss a murder in New York. Our first kiss was in the hospital after I got impaled by a madman during a case. I proposed to you brutally, without even getting a ring or thinking about it, while you were dangling from a cliff in Arizona.'
"Idiot," she repeated out loud, a smile curling on her lips. She remembered that moment as if it had been the previous day. During a race to catch a criminal, her foot had caught the edge of a cliff, and she had fallen roughly to the ground. Then, she had begun to tumble until her frantically flaying arms had caught an old branch that was stuck in the ground.
She had screeched his name in terror, had seen him running towards her as quickly as he could. While crawling down to reach her, she remembered yelling that she would never be able to hold on.
"You better hold on, Drew!" he had shouted. "No future wife of mine can die this way!"
She had been so shocked that she had almost dropped the branch. Without thinking, she had called back, "What?"
For a split second, he had stopped crawling. That single moment, he had looked in her general direction, and the image would forever remain etched in her memory. His clothes were ripped and soiled with dirt, and there was mud caked in his face and unruly hair. He was panting from exertion and his eyes and face shone with fatigue, but a sudden determination took hold of his eyes as he shouted, "Nancy Drew, will you marry me?"
Her response had been even more ridiculous. "Only if you get me out of here alive, Hardy."
The word caught in her throat. Hardy. His last name. Her last name for a few months.
And she was in a nursery.
This time, she didn't feel like throwing up. In fact, she only felt one thing; fury. With a loud scream, she reached over and grabbed the first thing she could, which happened to be the rocking chair. As hard as she could, she hauled it to the other end of the room, where it broke into a few pieces. Loud sobs left her lips as she stumbled to the window, her fingers grasping the silky drapes. She ripped those down with little difficulty and shoved them out of the open window, whirling around in order to deflect her pained fury at another inanimate object.
However, the door burst open before she could grasp something else, and Kyler dashed in the room. She took a half-second to analyze what was happening before she rushed towards Nancy, her arms outstretched.
"Oh, darling," she murmured tearfully, taking a few steps forward.
But all Nancy could do was weep. She sunk against her friend, her body convulsing as she cried helplessly. After a few seconds, she waved the crumbled wedding invitation around, and managed to speak. "Why did you call me that?"
Kyler looked slightly confused as she ran a hand over her tightly drawn-back brown mane. With a gentle voice, which made her English accent more prominent, she said, "Why do you say that, Nancy? It's your name."
"No..." Nancy smoothed out the tight ball and showed her the text. "It says 'Maid of honour: Nancy Drew'. My name isn't just Drew anymore, Kyler."
Kyler squirmed uncomfortably. "But Nancy, your husband..."
"Is dead," the redhead finished flatly. "But it doesn't mean that the world has to forget him."
Calmly, the bride-to-be murmured, "What happened to him?"
Nancy brushed tears from her eyes, sniffing absent-mindedly. Then, she chuckled darkly, her eyes suddenly studying the ground. "He was hit by a car." Then, slowly, she began to laugh, a slight touch of hysteria in the sound. "He was hit by a freaking car."
"And how is that funny?" Kyler's eyes were wide.
Nancy sobered. "My husband faced dangerous criminals, was locked with bloodthirsty animals, was trapped in an underwater room with almost no air, was electrocuted, and spent more time in the hospital in a month than most people do in their entire lives. He caught himself on fire a few times, got stabbed, got shot, got tortured for days... and he died crossing the road."
"I think I remember now," her friend nodded. "It was on the news. The kid was only fifteen, had stolen his father's car, and was quite drunk. He was bragging on his cell phone and burnt a red light, and that's when—"
"When he died. Yes."
Nancy then scanned the room, before the familiar ache of loss consumed her again. Swallowing painfully, she whispered, "But there was something else..."
Kyler reached over to take Nancy's hand in her own. "Tell me."
"Not only did I lose him, but I also lost the most precious thing he gave me..." Nancy's eyes filled as she pressed her hand against her stomach, now flat and toned from the hours of exercise she had forced herself to do.
"Oh, Nancy..." the English woman's eyes widened drastically. "You were pregnant?"
"We hadn't told a soul. We were planning a family reunion to announce the news to everyone at the same time. I was four months pregnant when he died. We buried him, and that night, I had a miscarriage." Her breaths escaladed until she was almost hyperventilating. "I never wanted to die so much than on that day."
Kyler's hazel orbs were now glistening with moisture. "Oh, Nancy... You should have refused my offer. I would have understood. Oh, oh, and now we're sitting in a nursery... Oh, Nancy, let's go back downstairs to the library."
She shook her head numbly. "It's been almost a year, Kyler. I should be over it by now."
Kyler sighed deeply, concern evident on her features. She then swung herself back and sat against the wall, pulling Nancy in a hug. "He wouldn't want you to be sad over him. He'd want you to go on through life with your head high, Nancy. Do him proud."
After a few silent minutes, Kyler left, sensing that Nancy was calm enough to be left on her own. The redhead numbly stared around her, wondering what their child would have looked like. He or she would have surely grown into a fearsome detective...
"Frank," she whispered tearfully. The name rolled from the tip of her tongue in a familiar way; she had barely spoken it since his death. "You're probably so ashamed..."
A few seconds of silence ensued as she continued her examination of the room. Finally, her eyes settled on the fireplace, where a small glint of glass caught her eye. Her movements were almost mechanical, as she automatically crawled over to pick up the object that had caught her attention.
Slowly, she turned the glasses over and over in her hands, instantly recognizing them as Matt's from Kyler's photos. Despite herself, she grinned as more tears filled her eyes.
"Frank, you idiot..." she whispered, shaking her head. "You're probably the one who made Matt disappear. Just so I could start my life over. A small mystery to solve instead of painful wedding preparations..."
Placing the glasses in her handbag, she stood up slowly. With a glance down at her wedding ring, she sighed deeply before looking out of the window at the shining moon. Before beginning to scan the nursery closer for any sign Matt might have left behind, she whispered softly, "I love you, Frank."
And then, she began her investigation.