DISCLAIMER: Madame Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. I'm just a crazy fic writer who just had to do something for Christmas this year.
My days are totally getting away from me, but I am committed to posting every day until Christmas... and never again doing anything this insane without prewriting the whole thing, LOL!
Anyway, here we go with Day Four!
PROMPT: Just an idea that popped into my head. (AH/OOC... Hurt/Comfort)
Word count: 1,442
On a narrow bed in a nondescript room, a man lies on his back. He has already counted the cracks in the low ceiling—eleven with three forming—and traced their jagged paths from end to end. It has been as fine a way to pass the time as any other and relatively harmless as potential habits go.
He is a rather calm fellow for the most part, having little tolerance or use for extremes, so his current situation could be seen as acutely difficult. But he does not see it that way and never will, and that is the source of his peace, the reason he can be so relaxed in such a place. Indeed, with an arm behind his head and his opposite leg bent at the knee, he is the picture of ease and contentment.
His thoughts drift back to his earlier conversation with his mother, which was more like a maternal monologue with the occasional nod or shake of his head thrown in. She commented on his hair, his weight, and the condition of his skin, and he let her cluck and fuss over him, realizing it was more for her benefit than his. And when she finished her inspection, she tilted her head and sighed.
"Just tell me why," she'd pleaded with watery eyes. "Can you just tell me why? Your father and I... we're trying to understand, but it's... hard not to think the worst."
He'd looked at her then, frowning at her words. She thought she was thinking the worst, that the current state of affairs was indeed that.
He knew different, saw different. He'd seen the worst, tasted its rabid bitterness on his tongue, and she couldn't have handled it.
But he could. So he did. With zero regret.
He'd given up trying to explain things to them—his parents, their friends, and the world at large—months ago. They all thought he had made an awful mistake, one that would ruin the rest of his life. But if they knew what he knew and felt what he felt, then they would know not only did he have no choice, but he had made the right decision. The only decision.
"If only you seemed sorry," his mother had said, blue eyes pleading. He noted she'd said 'seemed' sorry, knowing he wouldn't actually be sorry. "If you showed just the slightest bit of remorse… Maybe things wouldn't be so bad right now. Maybe... maybe there might be a chance."
He'd nodded along as a dutiful son should, understanding the place of worry from which her opinion came. But things were worse than bad, and there was zero chance that would change.
Especially after his last interview.
"If you could have it to do all over," they'd asked. "If you could go back to that moment, have it back, would you do the same thing?"
"No," he said without hesitation. "I would not."
Murmurs of satisfaction rippled through the crowd, proverbial tongues wagging.
"I would do more," he continued, his voice hard and low. "I would do more and do worse. Hell, I might try to kill him twice."
And those were the words that sealed his fate.
Fifteen to life. His mother had screamed when they said the words; his father's face went stark white. The gathered spectators roared in reaction—some outraged, some disappointed, all sufficiently scandalized—but he remained still. He did not speak, blink, or move, and his stoic response only hardened the court's attitude toward him.
They sent him to a prison on the furthest edge of the state, a fourteen-hour drive without traffic from the house he grew up in. His mother has made the trip twice in the last year. The first time, she was told he was not allowed to have visitors, and she cried so hard the paramedics had to be called.
That was the first time he felt anything resembling guilt about what he had done.
This time, the trip she made this morning, was based on her love of tradition, of family, and of an absolute refusal to spend a second Christmas Eve in a row without seeing her baby boy.
"Are you well?" she'd asked, reaching for his hands.
"Yes." And he was telling the truth. "I have everything I need."
She frowned at that, wishing he'd show just a glimpse of the person she thought she'd known. "I don't know what to say to that."
He took her hands, aiming to soothe. "Merry Christmas, Mother."
She attempted a smile and failed. "Is it?"
The visit ended then, for his mother wanted to get back to the hotel and rest. A random well-wisher—his aunt's neighbor or his father's second cousin—had volunteered to take the wheel on this trip, knowing it would be too much to make alone. His father has officially refused to come anymore, declaring that "if his son was fool enough to do the crime, he needed to be man enough to do the time."
But his father was mistaken—he wasn't a fool to do the crime. In fact, it was in doing the crime that he became a man.
A brief shadow falls across the window in his door, and he is instantly alert. Though resigned to his chosen fate, he does not enjoy the random beatings, the arctic showers, and the other such delights to which those in his position are often subjected. Some of the guards resent him more than they do most prisoners for he refuses to give them the satisfaction of a reaction. No matter how hard they punch, how pointedly they insult, or how much they deprive him of, he will not break.
For they cannot break a man who broke himself to be where he is.
The shadow moves, sliding open the metal slot through which his meals and medication are usually shoved, and the prisoner walks toward the door. If it's time for another prescription cocktail, he needs to prepare in order to hide the pills under his tongue without detection. Most inmates welcome pharmaceutical assistance in making the time pass faster, but he wants no such help. No, he wants to be conscious throughout his incarceration, to feel every passing second in the marrow of his bones, behind his eyelids, and in harmony with every heartbeat.
Because every moment of captivity for him is a moment of freedom for someone else.
Anticipating a small plastic cup, the prisoner is surprised when a letter slides across the tray into his cell, fluttering to the ground without a sound. And as he bends to retrieve the letter, he is further shocked to discover it has not been opened. Leaving it on the ground, he stands up and looks out the narrow window in his door, but the shadow has already moved on, likely to avoid being identified. The rules regarding correspondence are strict and always enforced, and any guard caught violating them would face immediate termination.
Why anyone would risk such a fate on his behalf, the prisoner does not know. But he picks up the letter and carries it to his bed, studying the envelope. He recognizes neither the return address nor the handwriting, and the realization only increases his curiosity. His short nails make the business of opening the envelope more difficult than necessary, but finally, after a few fumbles, he pulls out the letter and spreads it open on his bed.
And when he reads what is written, his heart nearly stops.
"There are no words, no way to fully express all I feel because of all you have done. But in the few lines I have been afforded, let me say three things:
1. Thank you for killing my husband.
2. When I saw what you did to his body, the savage way you beat him to death... I felt as if I could breathe again.
3. I do not know when you'll get this—and I pray it is a matter of "when" not "if"—but know that whenever you do, I will be thinking of you and thanking God that my husband hired you as our chauffeur last year. You saw in four months what no one cared to see in four years, and such a debt I could never repay.
But perhaps I can summarize my eternal attempt with these five words:
You are my life now.
Esme
Pressing the letter to his aching chest, Carlisle closes his eyes and sighs her name, a soft smile about his lips. Snow begins to fall, a gentle breeze blows, and somewhere in the world, a caramel-haired angel soars on new wings.
This story is soooo much different than the others, but I hope you enjoy it just the same.
See you tomorrow! XO