Nothing But The Rain

Chapter Six: You Were So True To Yourself, You Were True To No One Else

By: Jondy Macmillan

A/N: Hey guys, thanks so much for all the reviews. I'm continually amazed when this story gets the attention it does. I mean, obviously it's not typical SP fanfare, and it does have some rather mature themes. But you all have been so supportive, so thank you! Um, this chapter- and this story, if you haven't figured it out yet- touches on VERY sensitive topics. I'm not just talking about prostitution, or even death. You'll see what I mean. So, yeah, consider yourself warned.

-Stan-

So here's how it goes.

One day you get up. You look in the mirror, and there's blood on your hands. Only you can't figure out whose it is, maybe because you never got her name, but probably because there's too much for it all to be from one person. We walk around with scars on our heart and a smile on our face and expect to be able to change the world.

That's a lie. I stopped caring about changing the world a long time ago.

When my boss asks me to go on a coffee run, I agree, mostly because I feel trapped in my tower of silicone and steel.

I remember when I was really young, mom used to read fairy tales to Shelley. She was always questioning things. Why does the prince take so long to save Sleeping Beauty? What does it mean to be happily ever after?

I didn't even understand what the stories were about. Why was the damsel distressed in the first place? Why did Snow White eat the apple? She had to have known it was poison. I mean, Sleeping Beauty knew she was cursed, but that didn't stop her from pricking her damned finger.

Almost like she did it on purpose.

Why?

Now I know. These fictional maidens put themselves in those situations because they have no other choice. They do what is necessary. They do it because if they don't, life is going to continue, forevermore, like some kind of fucked up horror story. They'll either live their entire life condemned, or they can grab fate by the reigns and say 'fuck no. I'm in control.' Even if being in control means walking the line between life and death.

I'm on my way back from Harbucks, carefully balancing three cups of scalding hot coffee. The building I work in shines up ahead of me, like some kind of alien spaceship that's somehow taken roots in the core of the Earth. The building was constructed in a hurry some five years ago, back when life was still normal and Those In Charge thought that South Park was ready for expansion. Back then I thought the windows looked like mirrors, showing each and every one of us the future.

Now I think the only future they show is the sickness growing inside us all. Not the plague. Just…sickness.

A woman in an orange suit prances by me, throwing me a devil-may-care smile. She looks familiar, but maybe that's just my mind playing tricks on me. I miss the curb, almost spilling my coffee, but she catches my arm.

"Careful," she says, in a sweet voice. Then she continues on her way.

Since it was built, the building's become representative of change. The new regime. They call it the Department. The Department of law. The Department of justice.

I always thought the place would stand long after the rest of us turned to dust.

At first I don't realize that the ground under me is shaking, like the asphalt is being ripped apart. Mostly because my eyes are focused on the top floor of the Department, where the sun's glinting much too brightly for a gray day like this.

And then I realize the sun's reflection wouldn't be orange, like flames licking at the sky.

The world is shaking, like an avalanche is about to devour our once quiet mountain town, snow ripping through our quarantine.

The world is shaking, but it's not the world. I stumble back as glass and metal rains down around me. I narrowly miss being beheaded by a construction beam.

The world is shaking, but actually, it's only my legs.

It's an hour and a half later. One hundred and fifty casualties. Ten MIA. Thirty five dead.

Including the man who set the bombs in the first place.

They say his name is Christophe DeLorne. Now his name should be Pink Mist, since that's pretty much what his body's been reduced to. I'm standing in front of what used to be the Department, with this Christophe kid's liquefied remains beneath my dress shoes, not to mention what's left of…everyone else.

I can't think about that.

Instead I'm reduced to questions. I have to think logically, because if I think anything else, I might break down, and I cannot break down. Not right now.

Who did this? Was Christophe working by himself? How'd he even get into the Department in the first place? The explosions were set off on the upper levels, which you need security clearance to access. He must have had help.

Why would he want to blow up the Department in the first place?

The questions run through my mind over and over again. A mantra. A chant. A plea.

I need a distraction.

My feet crunch over shattered glass and bits of drywall. The things that made up the Department, the building I thought would stand forever; it's all here, spread out before me, its innards laid bare.

I round the corner, walking faster now. I'm struck by the pressing need to get away.

A flash of red against the cold, dead gray of the sky and the lifeless buildings of Main Street. Everyone's still at Lynn Kitty Gelsa's speech. She probably doesn't even know what happened, even though the bombs rocked half of South Park.

I see the red again, and it reminds me of the fire in the sky.

But this, this is a different kind of fire. I know exactly who caused it.

I chase him, and maybe he hears me, because he's running. That's okay, because I need something to run after. I need to feel like a predator; anything that will make me feel like a little less of a victim.

It's when I corner him in the alley way that he turns on me, eyes blazing. He's the brightest color in this town, the most beautiful thing in existence. Just looking at him is like prodding an open wound with a stick. It physically hurts.

His eyes are boring holes through my chest, and suddenly, I have answers.

"It was you," I say. It's not a question.

"Of course it was me," he spits back, "You doubted it?"

The venom in his voice is lethal, but I don't care.

I should have known what just happened was his fault. I know how much he despises what's happened to us. He equates our little quarantine to hell, and maybe it is. I know he's been working in the background all these years. Assassinations. Reconnaissance. Stolen information. I'm pretty sure even the thriving black market is somehow a part of his plan. No one ever knows where he's going to strike first. He's got moles everywhere. Well, one less mole now, if the bloodstains round the corner are any indication.

Still, I thought that even Kyle fucking-I'm-a-revolutionary Broflovski couldn't go this far.

I hate him.

I hate him because I need him. I always have. But he's a zealot. He believes he's doing the right thing. Isn't that the point? He believes in his cause, in killing the goddamned fascist government more than he values his own life.

"How could you do it?" I ask, my voice quiet and sure. My fingers itch for the trigger of a gun, but it was safe in a drawer in a room that ceased to exist, all because of him.

"How could you not?" he asks back, glaring at me like I'm the vilest thing in the world.

To him, I probably am.

He probably doesn't understand why I don't thank him for blowing up my life. In his eyes, he freed me from my fairy tale tower. What a fucking prince.

The problem is, he's the one who put me there in the first place.

Christophe died today. One day it's going to be Kyle. I never could stand the thought.

And the real reason I hate him is because I'm helpless to do a damned thing about it. He cut me out of his life when I tried to convince him to stop. He told me it'd hurt less.

When I wouldn't buy it, he told me I'd changed. Then he convinced himself it was true.

See, I was one of his goddamned moles, one of his informants in the Department. I started working there because he pleaded with me. He told me when the walls went up and we all started listening to our vampire preachers that things would go bad.

They did.

Then he told me that we had to take responsibility to change.

Change what, I asked?

Everything.

So I got a job with the Department. Because…oh, I don't know. Because I loved him. Because I thought he was a visionary.

Because I thought he was right.

I just loved him too damned much to not be scared for him. Every night I would come home, to him and Ike. My house had stopped being mine the second my parents disintegrated into madness.

Four months into it, Kyle stopped caring about me. He stopped caring about everything that didn't have to do with his fucking mission. He kicked me out. He told me I was different. I was the enemy.

And one day I woke up and it had stopped being a lie.

All I have is left is hatred, and underneath it him, and all the things I never got to say. I'll always wonder if it was because I was too much of a coward to blurt it out or because he was too deaf to hear it. Cartman was right. I'm the biggest pussy in the universe. I let myself get Jewed out of love. He always said Kyle would rob me blind. He just meant of my wallet, not my soul.

I glare back at him, letting every bit of anger, every thought I'd been suppressing channel into this one look. I kind of hope that maybe the force of it will stop him dead in his tracks.

Make him apologize.

Make him feel something for me, something other than revulsion.

Maybe it will make me feel something more for him too. I think I'd love to feel anything other than what I do. Betrayal. Hurt. Gut-clenching anger.

"My sister was in there," I finally let myself say it, "She's dead."

He shoves his hands in his pockets.

"Your sister was a bitch," he says, as if it doesn't matter. Maybe it doesn't, to him. There's nothing in that green gaze. Not even pity.

Rage is simmering in my veins, and I scream, "She was still my sister!"

Casually, he replies, "That girl you killed this morning was somebody's sister."

How the hell does he know about that?

I let my voice lower to a growl; go chilly with how much I despise him, "Somebody has nothing to do with me."

He glares at me, his gaze a deep freeze, "But it has everything to do with me. What you did is exactly what I'm fighting against. You used to believe in it."

"I used to believe in you."

Maybe it's a rage blackout that causes it. Maybe it's everything I've been holding back for two and a half years. Or maybe it's because my last remaining family member is dead, and I'm now well and truly alone, and something in me still needs my best friend.

I press my lips to his, but they're cold, unmoving.

He shoves me hard away and says, "You're disgusting. I'd hoped Christophe would have killed you too."

My insides are forming frost. Every word he says to me kills me just a little bit more.

This isn't Kyle. This is nothing but a statue.

Even so, I can't say anything as he turns and walks away.

A/N: Wow. Um. So. There we have chapter six. Kyle was a bit of an asshole, but you'll get his whole spiel in the next chapter.

And yes. Ze Mole went bye bye. If you're confused about what went on with him, Wendy, Clyde, and Craig, that'll probably be in the next chapter too.

I'm really, really nervous about this chapter, because like I said…sensitive topics. –ducks and hides- Tell me what you think.