This is to hold you over until I get the next chapter of WSBB up. Haven't updated in a while...Long story short: tonight is my FIRST dance competition. EVER. Flipping out. Anyway...another reason this was such a quick write is because, well, I dreamt it. Except it was my mom and I...it was traumatizing, to say the least. I felt like I could really identify with the characters, even though it still freaked me out a bit. Regardless, here ya go!
Beware of angst. Seriously.
Wish me luck!
Alivia
Rain fell fast, too fast, outside the house nestled between an oak tree and a corner house. Once filled with laughter. The silence and weather intertwined; creating a hollow feel in the dark depths of the house's basement. A home was a place where you felt happy, where you were free of pain and worry. A place of peace. A place of peace it was no longer, and so it was a house.
Nothing would ever be the same.
He sits beside his beloved boat, physically shaking at the pain and the memories that just won't leave him alone. It's better this way, he realizes; he doesn't want to forget them. Empty bottles of vodka scatter nearly every surface. Shards of glass litter the floor; the product of uncontrollable rage. Grief rips through his torso with every breath and bites at anything that moves, consuming the being, the life.
Nothing would ever be okay again.
The life Leroy Jethro Gibbs had thought he'd held in the palm of his hand had been snatched mercilessly. Vanished in the still night and loud screech of tires, in the shots of a gun and the scream of a little girl. Erased are the delicate caresses passed between a man and his wife, kisses stolen between bedtime stories, and baking cookies messily. The hide-and-seek, the night lights, the giggles, the love- is gone.
Guilt pulses through his veins, weighing him down to the concrete floor in unbearable motions. Every thought feels like a thousand knives cutting through him, choking him.
He should have been there.
The little voice in the back of his mind, ever childlike, screams at him. He should have protected the things that mattered most to him. He should have never left, just like the eight year old girl with big crystal blue eyes had begged. She had begged for him not to go, to return to her safe. Gibbs could only keep half the promise. And promises were everything.
The voice also mimics what Jethro hears on the recorder, the tape rugged from running consistently as white noise, as solace. Thoughts still plague him, however.
It should have been him in the car that day.
For a moment in time, the world stops for Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Another life he has taken, memorizing the scene of pulling the trigger and a drug dealer's truck being run off the road. Just the same as he's memorized Shannon's smile, or Kelly's laugh. Comfortably numb, he then is.
So he grits his teeth, clenches his fist, and squeezes his eyes shut, allowing the dark abyss of silence, rain, and stolen memories to consume him. For just a moment, he'll let reality drift.
"I love you, Daddy!"
He succumbed to the fantasy in which he saw them again.
Everything was warm. It penetrated her entire being, though she really felt anything but.
She remembers asking to go to Maddie's house. Her mother had told her it was too cold to be out, and she'd pouted. Nobody could ever resist her pout.
Jimmy, the driver who she'd loved to play with, looked unhappy at their adventure. She'd put on her black fuzzy boots that Daddy had said looked like a Sasquatch; whatever that was. Daddy could be so silly sometimes.
Kelly Gibbs remembers the loud screech of tires behind them, Jimmy's quick yelling that hurt her ears. Mommma pushed her down on the dirty floor of the car all of a sudden; and that's when she heard it. The explosion.
Everything sparked up like the fireworks she'd seen when her Daddy was home on the Fourth of July. Red, warm, liquid hit her in the face and she vaguely recalls screaming. The car started moving back and fourth quickly, too quickly, and it made her head spin.
Kelly squeezed her eyes shut, but that was no use.
The eight year old felt her skull hit the top of the car hard enough to hear a crack, and how her mother had screamed in pain. Then it was all just consistent pain, blinding like it'd felt when she'd burned her hand on the stove, but infinitely worse.
This time Daddy wasn't there to pick her up and hold her while she cried.
Shannon tried to soothe her, even with the agony she felt at the door crushing her torso. Every breath was bated and could well be the last, she knew. Nursing school had taught her that much.
Still, she moved as efficiently as she could, grasping her daughter's hand, hoping for some type of response. Just like when they'd first met, and Kelly wasn't breathing on her own.
Small fingers fluttered in her palm.
She murmured words of encouragement and that it was all going to be okay. But it wasn't. Both of them knew it, too. In her last moments Shannon thought of her Jethro, and of Kelly. How she wished it was three months prior:
Kelly running through the sprinklers, innocent and gleeful. Jethro gardening along side her, a smirk firmly set on his face as he watched her shirt ride up. The deep breathes of a life.
With the seconds passing things began to fade, and all was quiet; morbidly quiet.
Soon slurred words turned into blue lips. Kelly stopped breathing.
Everyone had given up.
The memories that consumed her snapped like a rusted rubber band, slapping her in the face with questions. Kelly's eyes flew open, to what looked to be a white ceiling. Her ceiling?
No. The sheets felt weird. Her small body shot up in bed, completely unaware of what she might see. Was it all a bad dream?
Another negative. This was not her room. It was really cool, though, with the lavender bed sheets and the butterflies that hung from the ceiling. They looked so real.
Reaching out, almost touching one of them, she drew her hand back in fright. They were real. Kelly threw back the covers in a hurried trance, bare feet hitting the warm flooring.
She didn't pause to look in the mirror or turn on a light, only stumbling forward to grasp a door knob and wrench it open. Kelly flinched, unnerved by the brightness.
She wanted her mom. Now.
Barely aware of the whimpering she emits, the young girl rushes forward, through the haze of light, and into the unfamiliar home. Everything is colored in neutrals, the furniture so normal, so welcoming. But everything feels empty, lifeless.
Then there's some relief, though barely noticeable: the sound of bacon sizzling in a pan, coming from just down a narrow hallway of hardwood. She sprints towards it, needing to see that she wasn't alone, like she felt.
The kitchen Kelly found herself in was just the same as the rest of the house. Perfect, however that may be in a child's mind. White counter tops, a pale yellow on the walls. A breakfast nook in the corner of the room.
As her eyes fell upon her mother, standing at the stove, she was in her arms not a second later. Finally, she felt okay. None of it was real, regardless of the fact she was in some kitchen in some house. They were still alive.
Shannon rubbed soothing circles on Kelly's back as tears pricked in her eyes, tears that she held back. When the eight-year old eventually loosened her grasp, Shannon held up a hand, willing to explain everything before being bombarded with questions.
Kelly had that of her father in her; the need to know things.
"I need you to remain calm, okay, Kel?" At the nod, she continued, swallowing the sob that threatened to break free of her throat.
"No one will hurt you anymore, Kelly. I promise. I don't know what happened, but I know we're safe," she said, making an attempt to keep her voice from cracking.
"Momma, why did those bad men do that? We didn't do anything wrong, did we?"
Shannon tried to swallow again, but her mouth was too dry.
"No! Of course not. They were just bad. Bad people do bad things," Shannon consoled her in the best way she could. Kelly remained quiet.
Then, her small voice broke the silence. "Where are we?"
Shannon bit her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. She knew, and yet she didn't.
Was this some sort of...afterlife? Her mind still wouldn't accept the fact that she could be dead. That she might never see Jethro again. That her and Kelly could just be rotting...
Kelly still awaited an answer. And Shannon didn't have one.
"I don't know, Kelly," she said, fat tears eventually rolling down her pale cheeks, stark against her messy scarlet hair. Her daughter's face scrunched up, and she began to cry as well.
Outside the single house that occupied acres of endless beautiful meadow, a mockingbird mimicked the shrill, sweet song, of some other bird.
Taking it's call without permission or warning.
Cementing the end.