A/N: The last story I wrote and published here for Rayna & Deacon felt so very much like a goodbye, but I guess it wasn't. And, well, if any two people know about goodbyes that aren't actually goodbye, it's these two.
Leaves swirl by on an easy breeze, a thick chill in the air. The cold snap came early this year and the leaves changed before they were ready, but an echo of the brilliant colors of autumn still remains in the fallen leaves that crunch underfoot. Children run around the neighborhood laughing, dressed as dragons and princesses, superheroes and villains, hidden by masks and wigs and makeup.
Jack-O-Lanterns line the street and as the sun begins to fall, they flicker to life almost as if by magic. Their grinning faces light up walkways and dot walls, jagged cuts made by tiny hands in anticipation of a holiday punctuated by sugar and becoming someone else, some unrecognizable version of one's self.
Halloween used to be Rayna's favorite – she used to love dressing up, becoming someone else for just a day. But ever since she had Maddie – long before, probably – it's become little more than a reminder. A reminder of a life she wanted to have, but never got.
It's the anniversary of the day Deacon graduated from rehab, the first time, and she can't help but remember every Halloween how she was filled with hope that first one. It wasn't the last time she had hope, but it was the first time and the weight of the memory feels heavy enough to crush her sometimes.
Rayna wraps her thick sweater around her body as she waits at the end of the walkway to a huge house a few houses down from where she settled with someone to try to help her forget the love of her life. She tucks a strand of her long hair behind her ear as her hands move up and down her arms, trying to generate heat.
She didn't dress up this year – things have been moving so quickly for her, she didn't have the time. She'd barely had enough time to scrap together a costume for Maddie.
Rayna's album just released to the top of the charts and critical acclaim, and she's about to kick off a world tour that is already very nearly completely sold out already before it's even begun.
The Woman Who Has Everything the tabloids call her, and every time she reads a headline like that it cuts some jagged hole in her heart because it should be true, she should want for nothing.
But here she stands on Halloween, the wind whipping around her, at the end of a driveway of neighbors she'll never meet watching the only thing she ever wanted walk up a long walkway lined with bushes covered in fake spiderwebs.
Maddie is dressed like a pumpkin and her costume billows out around her, a green hat-stem perched atop her little head. She's beaming as she has a little pumpkin container already filled nearly to the brim with candy in a stranglehold.
"Mama!" She says, toddling up to Rayna as she thrusts the candy container out at her, "Cany!" she says, smiling – at three, she's still having trouble with some of her letters – the 'D's refusing to form in her small mouth.
"I see that," Rayna smiles, heart bursting in her chest because before Maddie, she didn't realize she could love something – someone – so much.
Maddie sets the bucket on the ground and digs around in the candy, pulling a tiny candy bar out and thrusting it out to Rayna, "Mama!" she shouts, before digging again and pulling out another candy bar, "Eacon!" she sticks her tiny hand out and smiles.
Deacon crouches down and accepts the candy from Maddie, "Thank you, sweetie," he smiles, reaching out and ruffling her hair underneath the stem-hat before he looks down at the candy bar in his hand, "It's my favorite."
It isn't his favorite, not anywhere close. In fact, he hates that particular candy bar. But, Maddie beams at him before turning, picking up her bucket that she refuses to let either Rayna or Deacon carry for her. She reaches her tiny hand out to Rayna, and Rayna reaches down to take it as Deacon steps next to Maddie.
As they amble along to the next house, Maddie excitedly rambling about 'Haween' and 'cany', Deacon quietly unwraps the candy bar and takes a bite. Rayna watches him out of the corner of her eye, and she can't help the smile that spreads across her face at the look on his.
"What?" he asks around the candy bar, face scrunched up as he begins to chew.
"Still hate those, huh?" she smirks at him as he chews and swallows.
"That obvious?"
Rayna laughs, "A little bit, yeah," she shakes her head, still smiling as they come to a stop in front of the next house. Deacon makes a show of swallowing his very least favorite candy bar and Rayna rolls her eyes, "Why eat it, then?"
Deacon shrugs and gives her a lopsided grin – the same one he used to give her that made her stomach tingle, the same one that still does – as he tucks the candy bar wrapper into the pocket of the jeans he's always known how to wear so well. "Maddie gave it to me."
He says it simply, like it's the easiest answer in the world, like he would do anything for the little girl that is not his – except that she is, only he doesn't know that, and she wonders if there will ever come a day where that doesn't break her heart. She knows the answer, knows it will always leave her feeling hollow and scarred – would leave him that way, too, if he knew.
Rayna stares at him, her mouth parted, words she said three years ago to a Deacon who doesn't remember on the tip of her tongue and she thinks maybe she will say them. She will look back on this moment for years and think maybe she would have said them if Maddie hadn't hopped up and down, pieces of candy spilling out of her bucket as she squealed, loudly.
Maybe she would have told them if the moment didn't slip away so quickly.
"Eacon!" she holds out her hand, "Eacon, Eacon!"
Deacon breaks eye contact with Rayna and reaches down to take Maddie's hand, leading her up the drive of the next house on their trick-or-treating route.
Rayna watches them go, watches as Deacon takes slow and tender steps with Maddie, bending down to talk her through a scary prop skeleton that sits in the corner. She imagines what Deacon is saying to her daughter – to their daughter – telling her not to be afraid, telling her it's all just pretend, that what isn't real can't hurt her.
And Rayna thinks it's a good life lesson, even if she knows it isn't true – even if sometimes the things that hurt most are the things that aren't real. Like promises made in a tiny apartment, blankets tucked up around two sated bodies trying to keep warm because they can't pay the heating bill. Whispered words in the dark that twirl and tunnel into the heart of a girl in love for what she knows is the very first and what she will find out is the very last time: I'm gonna stay sober this time, baby.
As they come back down the drive – Maddie and her father – Rayna knows it's a pain that keeps giving, the one that comes from things that aren't real.
They go house to house until it's dark and cold and Maddie can scarcely keep her eyes open. After the house at the end of a cul-de-sac, Maddie raises her arms and Deacon bends down to pick her up. He takes her bucket of candy, the first time she's relinquished it all night, and holds it in his hand as Maddie winds her tiny arms around his neck and rests her face against his shoulder.
She's asleep by the time they make their way out of the cul-de-sac.
Rayna reaches out and takes the candy bucket from Deacon, her heart constricting in her chest as she looks at Maddie asleep on his shoulder. Her little legs splay out over either side of his hips and his arms lock around her lower back as she sleeps peacefully, never doubting her safety in Deacon's arms.
Rayna knows the feeling.
Wrenching her gaze away, she reaches into the bucket and pulls out a piece of candy. Deacon watches her, a smile on his face.
"What?" she asks, popping the tiny candy bar into her mouth.
"Still like those Butterfingers, huh?"
Rayna laughs, chewing the candy as she tucks the wrapper into the pocket of her sweater. They've been her favorite for a long time, and she used to refuse to share with Deacon until he'd satisfactorily convinced her that she should.
"Yeah," she smiles against the memories, so she won't cry over them, "Still do."
Rayna wraps her arms around herself, the bucket of candy bouncing against her arm as she walks.
"Cold?"
She shrugs, "A bit."
Deacon looks at her helplessly, Maddie in his arms, and Rayna laughs.
"It's okay," she shakes her head, "I'll survive."
Deacon gives her a small smile, "You always do."
And she does – even things she never thought she would. She survived losing him, and it's still the hardest thing she's ever done.
She clears her throat and sets her jaw, staring straight ahead as they walk quietly down the lane.
"So, Teddy's out of town tonight?"
"Yeah," she nods, stopping momentarily to study a particularly scary jack-o-lantern on a wall, "He's got a… merger… in Dallas."
Deacon stares at her for a long moment, and when she finally looks at him and keeps walking, he bursts into laughter. He tries to keep it quiet to not disturb Maddie as she slumbers and his shoulders shake with the effort. Rayna raises an inquisitive eyebrow at him and he shakes his head.
"You have no idea, do you?"
Rayna narrows her eyes at him, but as his eyes sparkle in the faint glow of the streetlamps on the street, she can't help but laugh, too.
She bites her lip, "I swear, he explains it to me every time, but…"
"It ain't music," Deacon grins at her, changing his grip on Maddie before he keeps walking, falling in step again next to Rayna.
"No," Rayna smiles, her arms still hugging her body to ward off the chill, "It certainly isn't. Anyway," she sighs, still smiling, "It's something like that."
Deacon chuckles and they fall into a comfortable silence as they walk back to Rayna's house. Eventually, they chat about the upcoming tour, her album, the sold-out arenas.
"This is it," Deacon says softly as they round the corner to the block her house is on, "This is everything you've ever dreamed of."
Rayna smiles, but doesn't look at him. She wonders if he can see the hollowness of her smile, if it shows as much as she feels it because no. It isn't everything she's ever dreamed of. Everything she's ever dreamed of is standing next to her right now, the perfect picture, the life she wanted to have.
"Yeah," she whispers, swallowing around the lump in her throat and Deacon glances at her.
As they walk up to her house, Rayna wonders if she imagines the guilt that flits across his face in the moonlight. She opens the door as Deacon stands holding Maddie on the threshold and she fishes her camera out of the pocket of her sweater. Setting the candy down inside, she raises the camera and snaps a picture: Deacon, Maddie in his arms, the soft porchlight casting a halo around them.
She will keep it for years, it will sit in an album, a haunting reminder of everything she lost – of how she is haunted.
Maddie shifts on Deacon's shoulder, rubbing her face against his shirt in her sleep. Orange face paint rubs off on his shirt and Rayna gasps.
"Sorry about that," she indicates the stain and Deacon doesn't even look at it.
"It's fine."
"If you want to leave it here, I can wash it for you," she offers, feeling awkward and nervous on her own doorstep.
Deacon smiles, "I can clean up my own messes, Ray."
They both hear the word he doesn't say: now.
Because there was a time when he couldn't – when she had to do it for him, and there was a time when the biggest mess he made was her. She couldn't stop crying for weeks the first time they'd ended things, and though she'd gotten more practiced at it every time, though she was eventually able to only cry at night tucked into the safety of her bed, she was a different kind of mess every single time.
She still is.
Deacon stares at her for a long moment, his eyes still so blue and so searching – the eyes she fell into when she was just a girl, really.
His eyes leave hers to scan the archway of her house, to take in the grandeur, the extravagance of this big house before they settle back on hers and his gaze pierces her. Sees right through her, the same way it always has; the same way he always has, "Are you happy, Rayna?"
He'd asked her that years ago, in a cabin he bought for her – her dream house – and she had answered truthfully, and without hesitation.
But she doesn't answer it now – she can't. He's holding the first and worst lie she will ever tell him in his arms, and she can't lie to him again, not right now. So she just smiles, and then reaches her arms out for her daughter.
She ignores the hole in her heart that tells her that Deacon should be the one to walk Maddie upstairs and tuck her in; that he should be the one to make rules about candy and bedtimes. That he should be the one to make memories, and not just when Rayna's husband is out of town.
"Thank you," her voice is quiet, timid as she wraps her arms around Maddie, trying to ignore the heat of Deacon's chest against her hands.
Maddie whines during the transfer, but quiets down as she snuggles her face into Rayna's shoulder.
Deacon's hands shift back to his pockets, like he doesn't quite know what to do with them without Maddie or Rayna in them. He's looked like that for years now.
"Thanks for letting me tag along tonight," he smiles, his eyes heavy with what looks like regret and memory, "Halloween is hard."
Rayna wonders if he's thinking about his first graduation from rehab. Or if maybe he's thinking about the very beginning of she and him – of the spooky party where he'd kissed her on a wall and defended her honor. She thinks of that night every year, too, trying to tamp down the sadness it wells up within her. She always fails.
"You're welcome any time, Deacon."
Deacon lets out a breath of a laugh because he knows it's a lie – she knows it's a lie too, and she hadn't meant to tell him another one, but like so many things in her life it's much too late now.
But he doesn't blame her. He doesn't call her out on it, he just backs away slowly down her porch and winks at her, the gesture sending a wave of something through her body where it lands in her stomach and tightens there.
"Night, Ray."
"Night."
She closes the door when he turns and walks to his truck and she stands for a moment, Maddie heavy in her arms, until she hears his truck's engine catch and he drives away. She stares at the door for a bit longer, her body weighed down by her past.
As she climbs the stairs of her house, daughter in her arms, only one thought resonates in her mind, taunts her with each step she takes:
Rayna Jaymes wants for nothing – except everything.