A/N: I can't tell you guys how much fun it was to right this one. I initially was absolutely terrified I'd bungle this up, since it's pretty different from what I usually do, but personally I kind of enjoyed writing it, as morbid as that sounds. Then again, this is the kind of story that could go either way so I'll let you decide.
"Waking Dreams"
Kelly: I see him...John Wakefield. Except not in my dreams. Awake. For real. Like he's back.
Abby: My dad killed John Wakefield.
Kelly: Then why do I keep seeing him?
-Episode 2
She locked herself in her room the instant the funeral was over. It would be easier that way, that's what she told herself, easier to slip away from the crowds of people clustered in the cemetery, saying their respects and muttering teary condolences to each other.
Kelly couldn't bring herself to be around so much emotion...no, she had enough of those churning up in her gut right now: anger, sorrow, grief, guilt...yes, guilt, guilt most of all. But she wouldn't tell anyone why...she couldn't, because than they'd look at her funny and they'd talk, and they were already talking enough.
"Poor fragile little thing,", "Always so quiet, it's not healthy!", "Someone ought to do something about it."
But no one did, and Kelly wouldn't let them if they tried. She had her grief now, and it was all she had...so why let a bunch of well-meaning yet misguided strangers take that from her?
And she couldn't talk to anyone, no, she just couldn't. She was afraid to say anything, they'd all think she was nuts. After all, the news had come out only a few days ago...he'd been found, dead, washed up out of the sea. Sheriff Mills shot him, Abby's dad, Abby's dad who'd just lost his wife, so why shouldn't he kill the bastard and save them all the trouble?
But Kelly knew the truth...yes, the vile, unspeakable, unbelievable truth, so unbelievable that she didn't even know if she believed it, and she didn't know whether or not she wanted it to be true.
The first time was the very day after everything happened. She was staying over at Shane's house, and her eyes were red from crying, and she looked up from the pillow she'd been buried in for hours and she'd seen it, she'd seen him just standing there at the window, not moving, not blinking, just standing and staring... She'd screamed then, that first time, and Shane had come in, uncharacteristically quiet and not knowing what the hell to do.
She didn't tell him what she'd seen of course, and if Shane had seen it he didn't tell her.
The next time was at the tree, when she'd sneaked away from Shane's 'alpha male' field of protection and gone to see them take the bodies from the tree. She needed to see, a part of her just needed to see, to know that it was real, that it all wasn't just some wild fever dream.
There were policemen and medics and reporters all around the creepy old thing, going about the business of cutting corpses down with a solemn reverence and a just as solemn haste to get the whole thing over with. Kelly was lurking behind a stand of stones near the tree, just to see her mother one last time when she'd seen him as well, standing just beyond the rest of them.
And none of them saw anything, but Kelly saw him, and he saw her too...he had eyes only for her, and she knew he must be real, she knew it, she knew it more than she'd ever known anything in all her life.
And now today...today as Reverend Fain read aloud from the Letter of Saint Paul to Whoeverthehell, while the whole damn island was gathered on the Candlewick lawn, lighting candles and making meaningless speeches, she'd seen him, standing at the treeline, where the woods began, lit dimly by the light of the candles.
And he was looking at her again...and suddenly she could take it no longer. None of them saw anything...none of them! Could they all be so blinded by their stupid, fake grief? There he was, just staring at her, smirking like the cat who ate the motherfucking canary, nonverbally telling them all that he wasn't done. That he was coming back...coming back to finish what he'd started, whatever the hell that was.
So she'd hurried away, slunk off into the growing darkness just as they were all processing to the cemetery. All the way back to her big, empty house in the middle of the woods. The house that had smelled of cookies baking, and lilac sprigs, and fresh-cleaned sheets just a week ago, but now smelled like nothing but dust.
Panting with exhaustion, Kelly sank to her knees at her bedside, her ribs aching in protest and her lungs sore with exertion. It felt so good...just to feel something, anything, but grief was so damn good. But she didn't have much time, she knew. She couldn't sit here forever...eventually she would be found. She would be found and forced to continue on...on and on with the rest of her life.
She was only sixteen, and yet she felt centuries old. How stupid, how silly, how melodramatic. And yet she knew how she felt. Maybe she knew what to do about it, too. Maybe...
An evening wind whistled through the tall trees outside her window. The branches rubbing together sounded like whispering, like moaning... God, I'm hearing voices now? Kelly could have kicked herself...but she was hearing voices, so why bother denying it?
There was a silver letter opener on her desk. The skinny decorative kind that you were never really expected to use anymore... It was emblazoned with an ornate caligrographed S, for Seaver...her mother had given it to her when she started high school, a rare little extravagance for a single mother to give her only child.
Kelly had never used it, not once. Fitting then, that she should use it now...in her mother's memory.
She didn't even feel the cut through her skin. But she saw it, oh God she saw it, and it terrified and thrilled her all at once. The spray of blood, gushing out of the vertical line she'd made in her forearm, a bright, vulgar crimson against her white skin. She felt faint at once, and suddenly she was slumped against the bed, and just as suddenly she had no idea where the fuck she was.
Oh but she knew...she knew what she was doing. She knew...it was what needed to be done, yes, it needed to be done.
"Kelly!" a harsh voice, a banging on the door...was he here already? Too late for him then. 'You snooze, you lose,' wasn't that what they said?
"Kelly, are you in there? Dammit, Kelly, open the door!"
He was banging on the door now, she heard muffled swears, something heavy being flung against the solid wood. She felt blood oozing down her arm, onto her chest and the cheap black dress she'd just buried her mother in. It was wet and slimy, and for some reason it was warm, which was the most unexpected thing. Yet it was so welcome, that warmth...especially as the room around her began to become blurry, began to fade away like an the end to an old movie, grainy and suffused with static, but fading away, most definitely.
A loud bang, a crash, the door must have given at last. "Shit!" a heavy voice, a gruff voice, "Oh shit, Kelly, Jesus Christ..."
She wanted to laugh at him ("You snooze, you lose!"), laugh right in his face, but soon enough she felt his hands on her shoulders, firm, coarsened hands gripping her with a brutal force...of course, it must have taken a hell of a lot of force to get her mother and Mrs. Mills and Mr. Cullen up into that tree.
"Kelly, Kelly, come on, Kel, stay with me... Kelly, dammit, it's me, it's Shane!"
Shane... Kelly tried to focus her gaze, as much as she could, and she didn't see Shane at all. A liar too, as well as a killer! Of course he was... But if it wasn't Shane, and it really was him, that meant he hadn't been late after all. He still had time, time to snuff her out, to finish everything before she finished it herself.
So there really was no more point fighting it. He was here now, and he had time... She knew it, of course, he'd tried telling her so often, with his cold smiles and his unblinking eyes. This whole thing could only end one way and that way was this.
"Dammit, Kelly, keep your eyes open, help's coming, okay, I promise."
God, he was slow about things! She could barely see anything at all at this point, and here he was still taunting her about it! What a sicko...what a sick, twisted, old bastard... Why not just finish it now? Why waste precious time playing with his food?
More footsteps, more shouting... What, was he calling the cavalry, now? This was taking much too long, much longer than she thought it would... She heard snatches of sentences, of commands, someone shouting for an ambulance, someone sobbing...was that old Maggie Krell whispering a Hail Mary? Ironic...maybe she was dead too now, strung up from a tree like all the other well-meaning older women.
"Kelly, Kelly, come on, we're gonna take you down to the clinic, alright?" a new voice...well, not a new voice...a familiar one, a gentle hand on the back of her head, holding her steady while stronger arms lifted her up onto some kind of stretcher or something, "Come on, Kelly, look at me, come on, keep your eyes open, girl, okay?" Poor thing, whoever it was, they sounded very said, "Come on, Kelly, it's me, it's Nikki...please, stay with me, Kel, please..."
Nikki...of course, it was Nikki. How could she have forgotten Nikki? Yes, she could sort of see a flash of yellow which must be her hair.
"Oh thank God, she opened her eyes!" Nikki made some distressing choking sound that could have been a laugh or a sob, "She opened her eyes!"
What was the big deal? Kelly didn't get it, didn't they understand? Maybe Nikki would...maybe she should have told Nikki, if no one else. Maybe she should try now, while there was time.
"He has too... he has too..." it was difficult to speak, she felt so sluggish and sleepy and she wasn't even sure anyone could understand what she was saying.
"Shh, shh, Kelly, don't talk, okay? It's gonna be alright..."
"He has to come back..." Kelly begged, looking where she assumed Nikki was, "He has to come back for me... Wakefield has to come back for me."
A/N: Again, very different from what I usually write, so my apologies if it's a bit confusing or angsty or melodramatic or whatever. As always, all reviews are welcome and appreciated. The next update probably won't come about until after Christmas but before the New Year, though that can always change. Until then...
