Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes.
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What we call the beginning is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
— T.S. Eliot
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She looks an angel, wearing her finest white nightdress, her dark brown hair fanned out underneath her head. Her skin is pale, so pale that the dirty linens she lays upon are darker than she, and the contrast between her flesh and her hair is striking; only the circles around her eyes are darker than her hair.
Her eyes are closed, adding to this unintentional image of innocence, and she is breathing slowly, her chest rising and falling in rhythm to her sighs. She's sleeping.
It is a fitful sleep at best, but, for the moment, she's at peace. Thin lips, colorless, chapped and cracked, are slightly curved, as if this angel knows that her rest shall not last. Or, perhaps, she's hoping just the opposite, hoping that it will last forever. Eternal slumber.
Despite the winter chill, the window beside her bed is slightly open but she needs no blanket. To her it is warm, and has been for the past few weeks. It's a struggle for her mother to even get her to wear the nightdress and only her lingering semblance of societal expectations keeps her dressed. She's not alone in the small room, though she is as quarantined as it is possible to be in a one room New York apartment, and her parents are trying, needlessly, to preserve her modesty.
There are beads of sweat popping up along her forehead, signs of a fever that will not relinquish its hold. She's not bothered by the slickness and her mother, after reaching for the nearby rag, dots her daughter's brow, removing the feverish damp and leaving behind traces of the tears she can longer pretend are not there.
There are three others in the apartment; three boys that watch the woman dote upon the sleeping angel. One is there because he wants to be there for his mother, another against his mother's wishes and the third… the third wants to say his goodbyes.
He knows how this will end. It started with a cough and it will, he has no doubt, end with a death. Her death.
She's going to die, and he's no stranger to the disease that will kill her. He watched his own waste away while in its vicious clutch and he'll be damned if he watches her be stolen from him, too.
She is oblivious to them all, has not recognized their presence since the evening before when her mother managed to entice her to swallow a few mouthfuls of the richest broth the family could afford. She only opens her eyes when the dark becomes too much for her, only opens her mouth when the coughs come.
The coughs are the worst.
Terrible coughs, filled with blood and mucous, coughs that rack her entire body, making her convulse in agony as she tries to get them under control. Coughs so strong that they cause her breathing to cease as long as they last, robbing her of the few breaths that remain.
The coughs begin slowly and quickly overwhelm the girl; her eyes open revealing dark eyes that are all but swallowed by the dark that outline them. She spares a near silent whimper before the real coughs take her over and she begins to shake. Her mother and the eldest of her two brothers lean in to help support her fragile form, ignoring the desperate, yet weak, way she's clutching at them.
Begging for relief and finding only pity there, she struggles to get through it and, this time, luckily, the fit is not so bad. She's panting now, moaning under her breath as David—she always clings to David the longest—slowly lays her back down on the bed. She offers no fight but simply closes her eyes again before turning, gently, onto her side.
It's so hot, Sarah murmurs tiredly as she lays her head on her pillow and tilts her face upwards so that she can feel the cool February air upon her cheek. So very hot, she says as she wraps her arms around her and, in contrast to her words, begins to shiver.
David says nothing as he leans over and brushes her sweat soaked hair away from her skin before taking his place beside his younger brother. Esther is holding her hands to her bosom in an attempt to keep her grief in, blue eyes rimmed red as she watches her eldest child. Les, with the wonderment of a child, is watching the scene, morbidly fascinated.
And Jack…
Jack's gone. Frantic footsteps echo on the staircase as he makes his flight.