"The Dance" Jerry Goldsmith
Chapter 1. Dancing with the Devil
Allison remembers dying.
She remembers having the book – holding it to her chest, keeping it away from them – and the homicidal angels – the ones that wanted to know of the end before it came, who wanted to prevent it, to keep humans from finding their way into heaven.
She survived getting shot – the perks of being a nephalim – but Stark was not a forgiving angel and chased her even after his fight was lost, finding a human to play the role of assassin once and for all.
She remembers her heart being ripped out – the final death.
The only thing is...she's not dead.
She's not in heaven, she's not in hell, and she remembers everything.
She sees a light before she sees a shape – it looks like a man – but everything is too bright for her to tell. She flails her arms, trying to breathe, shaking because it's cold, and then she sees her: a woman covered in sweat, crying, with a man by her side, ready to receive her.
She doesn't understand, doesn't know why her eyes keep trying to close, why her hands can't reach that far and why she's whimpering instead of talking. Once she feels her hand – her tiny, little hand – wrapped around the woman's finger, she understands.
The family she has been reborn into – the Crowe family – isn't a bad one. Actually, they're very...comfortable and lucky. They named her Hope. Allison tries to find comfort in the name – in her situation – but she doesn't.
She doesn't cry as often as normal babies would, which sometimes worries her mother, and she avoids trying to do anything that might clue them to what she is – what she knows. She slips, sometimes, trying to turn when her mother says, "Look, daddy's home," and smiling when something funny shows up on the television. They don't think too much of it, though.
Once she's old enough to go to school, it's hard for her to socialize. She keeps expecting the world to end or some angel to try to kill her or for him to come back. She's smarter than most kids – she still remembers math – and it's hard for her to pretend she's learning to write for the first time. This hand is new, so the handwriting is different, but the spelling is just the same. She's left-handed again. She didn't think she'd be.
Junior High is worse. She's expected to socialize more because her dad is going into politics and her mom has become the socialite of the city. She forces a few smiles here and there, makes some genuine friends, but it's still there, prickling at her skin, the knowledge that she might wake up and see her own reflection again – the one she was first born with, the one that includes the scar on her cheek.
She's in High School and even has a boyfriend. She had tried not to, but he had been very persistent. It's sweet, for a while, and she almost feels like she's settling in, finally...until she sees a man wearing a black cloak walking away, curls of black covering the nape of his neck, hands in his pockets.
She breaks up with Scott the day after. She's still Allison, not Hope, and for whatever reason she's been brought back, no one should have to suffer the consequences of becoming tangled in it. Her brother did and looked how well that went for him.
She's a senior now, fully bloomed and beautiful; the gem of her parent's eye. Her brown/auburn hair cascades in soft waves down to her waist, tied back neatly by a small headpiece that cost more than her dress. Her dress is lilac, tight around her chest and waist, flowing perfectly below that, giving her room to move her legs without worrying about having to keep a five-inch distance from people. She feels taller in this body, too, but she knows it's just the fact that she's had to wear heels more often because of these events. Her skin is a little lighter, not like what she's used to – not at all what her heritage gave her when she was just Allison. She hates this new appearance, even if it's not so different from the first, but she looks more beautiful than she ever was – her privileged upbringing might have something to do with it – and she misses her scar.
"Is this what hell is like?" She wonders aloud, standing outside, on the terrace, while the party continues on inside. No matter how beautiful she might look or how many things she has, she doesn't feel like Hope – with her memories, her echoed appearance of what she was and will always be, she feels like Allison.
"I can answer that with absolute certainty: no."
She knows that voice – her heart knows that voice, too, because it immediately starts pumping blood into her system, so quickly that she feels lightheaded for a moment, and then she remembers that breathing steadily might make that stop.
Breathe, she tells herself.
"You know," he continues, "most people would take the opportunity of rebirth as just that, a chance to become someone else, someone new, and yet you sad, little monkey, decide to waste it."
"What do you want, John?" She uses the name he's taught her to use rather than the other, even though her mind is screaming that other name louder than her mouth is speaking.
"Nothing, actually, I just came to say hello."
She finally allows herself a look – it was meant to be just a glimpse – and she's quickly dumbfounded by what her eyes see. It's him, all right – he hasn't changed at all – but he's not in his usual black shirt and trousers attire, the black cloak also absent. Instead, he's actually wearing a tuxedo – black, of course – with a perfect bow, a white buttoned-blouse and everything else that follows, to make him a fine looking gentleman – a dangerous one.
"Why?" She blurts out.
He doesn't look at her, though he must know she's staring at him, as he smiles, "Why what, exactly?"
She turns, facing him, arms crossed, "I'm supposed to be dead. I did what you wanted me to do. I kept the book safe, the pages are lost. They'll never find his name. Why hasn't the world ended yet? Isn't this what we worked for? What you used me for?"
He looks at her, out of the corner of his eye, and she freezes – her whole insides freeze. He looks ahead again, "I did not use you, Allison." Her name, coming from his lips, gives her a familiar sensation. "I simply allowed you to be a part of something you were already a part of. I do not know why you were reborn in this body. Your family seems unimportant, for now. Perhaps this was His gift to you. As you say, He works in mysterious ways."
"So, you didn't do this?" She accuses, almost immediately.
He smiles, completely, "No, Allison, I did not, though if I had, I would expect you to be a little more grateful."
She scoffs, "Grateful? How can I be grateful when I remember everything? I know what happened to me. I remember my parents, my brother, my life, my death – everything, John. It's still in me."
She almost mentions what else she remembers dreams...of him, of them, but that's a memory that she doesn't want to touch – something she can't handle right now.
He turns, walks closer to her, until their faces are mere inches away, "As I said, He works in mysterious ways."
She glares at him – feels angry yet scared, but the anger is stronger, and he can feel it, too. It's almost palpable. He reaches for her cheek, touching where he remembers her scar to be.
"Dance with me."
That blinks the anger away, replacing it with shock, "What?"
He offers his open palm for her to take, "Dance with me. I assure you, Allison, it is not that difficult."
She glares, "Haven't we been dancing this whole time?"
His lips curl up into a smile as he nods approvingly, "Sass, it suits you. You take after your mother, I take it?"
"Which one?" She narrows her eyes at him before, finally – almost hesitatingly – taking his hand.
"Both, perhaps," he leads her into the room, through the open doors, and people start clearing a path to the dance floor. She doesn't know if John has an identity here and wants to avoid looking at her "parents", keeping her eyes on John.
"John, what am I doing here?" She whispers, keeping one hand on his shoulder while the other one is firmly clasped in his.
"You are attending your mother's charity ball and looking rather fetching while doing so."
"Enough messing around," she ignores the flutter in her stomach. "Why do I remember everything? Why I was reborn to be their daughter? Why didn't I die when I was supposed to? Why isn't it over yet?"
His face grows serious as he looks into her eyes and she thanks God – or not – that he's leading because she almost froze, but he's moving her, so she's staying on auto-pilot.
"What if I told you, Allison, that your questions are my own?"
She blinks, "I thought the devil knew everything."
He sighs and he almost seems normal, like something cracked his super-cool mask. "Not quite."
She looks around, sees a few eyes on them – including her parents' eyes. They seem happy...they are good people.
"So, I'm just supposed to pretend to be someone I'm not? That I don't remember anything? That I'm Hope Crowe?"
"Aren't you?"
"John," she warns.
He stops their dance, catches her by surprise, and takes her hand – the one that had been in his hand the whole time – and kisses the back of it, smiling, before saying a few parting words, "Look in the mirror, Allison, and ask yourself that question; not who you look like, but who you are. Who are you? The girl in the mirror, or the one who wields the eyes?"
He leaves, leaving her dumbfounded in the middle of the dance floor.
After the event is done with, she explains to her mom he's just an old friend, a guy he always liked but was wary of because he tended to scare her, kind of unpredictable and reckless.
Not an entire lie, to be honest.
That night, she does look in the mirror and sees her, sees Hope, a prettier and cleaner version of Allison, but feels...feels a lot like Allison.
She doesn't know what the game is, what the purpose of her existence is, but it is what it is and she can only hope to find out some time soon, before the confusion of her identity settles in again.