Desert Rose Chapter 10: Snow White Part II, a teen titans fanfic

A/N: Yeah, I updated, I updated, I updated… and tomorrow there will be more updates… to my other stories… yeah…

Thanks and kudos to my awesome beat and friend Cherry Jade for beta-ing and her support… you are just the best…

Disclaimer: Nooooooooooooooo, I don't own them… I don't own anything…

Chapter Ten:

Snow White Part II

"Mirror, mirror on the wall

who's the fairest of them all?"

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Terra's P.O.V

It was a day of blue skies edged in grey from the lingering storm. The docks no longer had the strong fish-gut smell that would assault one's senses, but the winter sea and the scent of salt was in the air… though that would not last long since the fishermen would soon return home from the ocean with their new piles of fishes - and it was that smell that would bring tears in my eyes whenever I look back to yesterday. Papa stood on the docks, his hands in his pockets and his eyes to the horizon, pensive and far away. I must say that at the time I was not paying too much attention to my father; I was still young and naive. To a child, the moods of parents are only interesting if they are angry with you or willing to give you something. At the moment, all I could think of was how fascinating the docks were, how pretty the boats with their paper sails, and how glorious the ocean stretched.

I watched fascinated at the flight of sea gulls in the sky, their squawking cries did not deter me from seeing their beauty and their freedom. I did not mind the slipperiness of the filthy wood beneath my feet.

"Papa, can we go eat?"

Papa was silent. I think that's what made me look at him, what made me study him and remember how he had looked that day, before he collapsed my world. The last moment I saw him as a god, and a pillar in my life.

His back was straight. His dark hair was cut short, his green eyes searching the sea for answers a seven year old child could never give him. A tailored suit adorned his tall figure and made him stand out even more than his hair and his height.

The dock rocked beneath my feet as the wind blew by like a wave from the sea and his words knocked me down, succeeding where the wind failed. An act he was able to accomplish through mere words to tear apart my childhood.

"Tara," his soft voice echoes still in my dreams, "Your Mama has cancer, the doctor says that she will die in a two months, four if we're lucky."

I blinked. I think at first I thought it was a joke! I didn't know whether he expected me to laugh, but when I looked up at his tears falling like tiny crystals in the emerging sun, I knew. I stood there silent, in indecision. At the time I did not know what cancer meant, the disease that was my enemy, but I had already learned the general meaning of death even though I had never concerned myself with it, as at that age we still believe in eternity and the god-hood of our parents.

"Will Mama be an angel then?" I finally asked in a small voice. Maybe she will visit us, maybe she won't leave her only daughter behind.

Mama wouldn't be cruel like that.

Papa looked startled for a moment at my naive question, at my desperate attempt to hold on to the reality I had taken for granted for over seven years of my short life. He laughed and the laughter shattered my world in its harsh tone, like the squawk of a sea gull overhead. As I have said before, he did not intentionally hurt me in that moment. No, Papa was too lost in his own sorrow and anger to notice mine, to care about the despair in his laugh. My father, at the time was blind and blinded by his bitterness, by his love or my Mama.

My Mama.

Already, he was trying desperately to get a grip on his own world, by distancing his world from mine, from ours. He was trying so hard, he couldn't even see this small papa's girl standing in the storm with him anymore. He was not holding onto me or I to him, and in that, for a while, I was lost in the storm with him. For many years I stayed lost, even if I tried desperately to pull myself out of it, to pull myself out of that bitterness and that isolated shell I have created for myself, that Papa had taught me to create on that decaying dock on the side of the sea as I lay drowning in my own confusion.

That was the day my Papa died and Father took over...

It could be said that I had only lost a mother to the disease of life, to the things of fate and destiny. But in reality, I had lost both Papa and Mama in a single day and from then on, from the bitter laughter that escaped from my Papa's lips, I had learned the safety of silence and reserve. I had learned how to protect my heart and pride from mockery, from defeat by the undisturbed sound of nothingness.

Two months, Papa had said, four if we were lucky. Two months and I would be an orphan, and at that moment I realized that Mama would not live to see me turn eight. My seventh birthday would be my last. Later on, I would think of all the things she would never be able to witness or attend. Moments like my wedding day, like the ones that they showed on the old fashioned TV shows; the ones that the old ladies gossiped about along their crooked and narrow streets, an event that would be missed by the most important woman in my life. Mama would never be able to judge the man I fall in love with. Mama would never be there to see me grow up, fall in love and have kids, nor would Mama be able to become "Grandma" to my children. These dreams out of a million dreams died that day. Yet, I was focused on things closer than the distant future at the time. For then, I was still remembering the way Mama had brushed my blonde hair that very morning and how the ritual would end soon.

I remembered the laughter in her voice while buttoning my mismatched clothing. I remembered the smile on her face as she cooks and cleans and…

I stopped thinking then and I looked at the sea that had all the answers my grownup father could never give me. And then he said something to me that closed the door to ever getting back into youth.

"Tara, I want you to know the truth," he said in a voice that did not sound like my Papa's anymore. It was a stranger's voice to me now.

"Your Mama doesn't know that she only has two more months left to live and I don't want her to live the last days of her life knowing that she's going to die. Do you understand, Tara?"

He turned to me and his eyes were no longer filled with tears. For a moment I think I caught a glimpse of the Papa I knew, as the pain lingered there and the openness of his eyes returned. Too soon, the emerald turned hard and cold, reserved and unforgiving, and he was a stranger once more.

I think loss blinded me as well that day, the last day of my innocence.

"Can you keep a secret, Tara?"

I nodded, not trusting my own voice.

There was nothing I could say to this stranger. He scared me a little, only this time it was not because Papa's angry, but because Papa's gone and I don't know the man in Papa's clothes with Papa's hair and Papa's eyes that weren't really his anymore. I was confused and dizzy, but I did not faint or fall or stagger. I just stood there in silent obedience, in fear, frozen for all times as that little girl that was "Tara", that had once been Papa's little girl and Mama's princess. She was gone now, taken by the wind that rocked the dock I was standing on, drowning in the ocean with all its mysteries and answers that a human being can never have nor ever give.

It was two weeks to Christmas. And Mama would be dead a little over a month from that day. I had no wish to rejoice, but I had promised, I had agreed. Two months to the last I would see of my father's laughter, his own pretence that life can go on. Adults are so much better at pretending, perhaps because they had more practice at it. Still, it was the first time I was asked to act the opposite of what I felt. To repress the pain into a tiny point that would only prick me if I thought about it. And I'd do anything to not think about it!

I stood there silently, contemplating how I was going to play a lie during the last two months of my Mama's life and hated myself for it.

Father transformed into Papa again the moment we stepped from the outside and into the door. It was hard to keep track of reality in those last two months. I remember it like a dream because I was torn between a lie and the reality that made living with this lie hidden beneath it all both harder and easier.

I remember my last Christmas with Mama. I recall the tree that Papa had found with rough bark and shedding needles. It was not a perfect tree, but it was perfect to us!

And every time I smell the pine at Christmas, I remember that tree that filled our rooms with the smell of spicy wood, the memories of the last Christmas I celebrated with my family, my Mama and Papa.

Papa and I decorated the tree with sparkling ornaments, glass angels, and gold beads. And I was glad, I made so many wishes that day that I couldn't possibly count all of them. But many were the same. The wish for happiness and peace and Mama. I wished that the lie would end. That I could cry, instead of holding it all in till it was a prickling thorn that stabbed at me in the night, when the laughter was gone and I could no longer pretend that everything's alright.

I found no solace in the darkness that would not let me rest. I found no haven in the silence knowing that maybe tomorrow Mama's sheets would be cold and her bed empty and she would be gone...

Gone.

I would try to think of everything but what was happening beneath all the pretence, behind all these walls. It was the first time I learned to start building walls around my heart, when my laughter became less infectious and more subdued, when I learned to listen more than I spoke. It was on days like these that I learned to be silent for hours on end, bidding my heart to slow from the terrifying race it went through as I'd woken from a nightmare with my hand reaching out for my Mama and a silent cry on my lips.

It was the first time I stopped asking Papa for advice or Mama for comfort. The first time I dug a hole for myself on the inside and tried to burrow deep down into it to hide from the pain. If Papa noticed, he said nothing of it; if Mama knew, she never confronted me. I was solemn while I smiled, crying while I laughed. It was my first brush with real deceit and I wanted to die. I wanted the nightmare to end and I wanted to disappear into the darkness, leaving my own darkness behind me like a shadow swallowed in the night.

"Tara, tell your father to stop stealing those cookies I baked!" Mama winked at me before turning to scold my sheepish Papa.

He laughed, and I thought I heard an echo of sadness in his laughter. "You're just unhappy that I took some pictures of you in the kitchen today," he replied with a grin.

"You forgot the part where you dumped flour all over me before you grabbed that camera and started snapping!" Mama answered him darkly, though her smile did not leave her face.

I giggled at the memory of it, stopping myself when I realized that in a little while she wouldn't be with us anymore. And that thought scared me so much, because I could not imagine my world without her in it, without Papa's laughter and Mama's teasing. No more tumbles in the leaves that we gather when we go visit the park in the fall. No more chases around the pond, or feeding the ducks with crumbled bread. No more late nights past bedtime, watching the stars from the roof-top of our house, trying to see past the city smog. No more iced-tea in the summer and swims at the local pools to cool down from the heat. No more burnt cookies - since Mama swears she'll never get used to the oven - and soup while the rain runs in little patterned rivers down the window pane. No more Mama, no more smiles, no more secrets told in the dark and hugs given when I'm scared in the night.

All gone.

She looked at me and I smiled as I broke off the black, charred sides of the cookies and ate the middle where it's soft and sweet, pretending that this is not my last Christmas with her. Pretending that this is not my last laugh given, but that happiness goes on and on like the rivers and the sea. Pretending to dream old dreams like I used to have as the snow fell unendingly outside my window, covering the world in white.

Pretending.

With the candles glowing, and the soft music on the radio playing, with the white fluff gathering outside, I could almost believe that my own little fairytale would come true, that my wishes would be answered against all odds. I needed to believe that my days of joy would be as uncountable as the flakes drifting to the ground outside. The snow, for a while, hid the truth of what the cold claws of Winter had done to the world, just like the lies I lived with hid what Death had done to mine.

And for a while, it was beautiful.

"Tara, when is your Papa coming home?" Mama asked worriedly as she wrung at her handkerchief. Her blue eyes wide with worry.

I blinked.

With Christmas gone, Father began to work overtime. There were days when he didn't come home till midnight, sometimes even later. Mama would worriedly sit up in the night, eyes wide with sadness and they'd argue. He, angry at everything, and she, frustrated and uncertain. I don't know what was worse, the arguments or the morning with the tension filled silence. Breakfast, where no words were passed. Then there'd be days when they would smile and life was right again.

I was so confused.

"He'll come home soon, Mama," I lied. When did I get so good at telling lies like these? When did I learn to lie to my own Mama?

Life's funny that way, isn't it?

I wanted to cry; instead, I smiled.

"Everything's going to be alright, Mama." What was I saying?

Mama smiled in return, and I don't know why it hurt so much to see her so pale. Papa, where are you? I wanted to scream at him. I wanted him for once to stay and watch Mama get paler everyday, thinner everyday, sicker everyday. Does he know what it's like to clean the kitchen floor where she's thrown up? Does he know what it's like to clean Mama's face because she's unconscious on the smooth tiles? Does he know how it feels to try to catch her body with my small one, only to end up crashing onto the ground? How many bruises has he seen on her arms and legs because of the falls? How much pain does he see her in without him by her side while the sickness ate away her life? Does he even remember that he has a family?

Everything I wanted to ask him and never did.

I lived with the silence.

Silence is safer.

The silence in the morning, with my eyes on the table.

"Tara, you should go to bed now." Mama sighed as she petted my head, "It's past your bed time." She wrapped her arms around my waist, but I didn't want her to lift me. She was getting so weak these days that she had trouble getting up in the morning to make breakfast. She was dying before my eyes and I couldn't get away from this room, this house, this place, because my Father was doing all the running for me.

He didn't have to see a thing.

I think I hated him in that moment.

"Alright Mama, but you promise you will go to bed soon too?"

Mama laughed before her eyes clouded over, "Sorry, Tara, but I have to wait for your Papa to come home."

Papa's gone, I wanted to say. I open my mouth, and exhale, "Ok."

I climbed up the stairs, leaving a lonely, fragile woman behind me, her eyes looking at the front door. A woman whose tears stopped falling a long time ago. I could hear her heart breaking, I could see the shadows of darkness closing around her. I closed me eyes and shut the door, lean my back against the wood and looked at the empty ceiling in this empty house.

So many memories, so many phantoms haunting my nights.

I rested my head against my leg and remained with the silence for a long time. In the dark, I dreamed of an angel coming forth, white and shining against a black night, illuminating my dark world. Healing me. In the dark, behind my eyes I felt safe.

Yet I stayed awake listening for the sound of Papa coming home, unwilling to admit to myself that I still loved him and needed him. Unwilling to admit that just because I'm not downstairs with Mama, watching that door opening, waiting for him to step through smiling like he used to, that I cared.

I ran out of tears as well, I told myself, but it did not stop them from falling down and shattering like my broken family.

Mama stayed up after midnight. Mama kept dinner on the table waiting for Papa to come home. She did that till she couldn't get out of bed anymore. Even then, she'd lie there waiting for him to return to her. I never knew why she loved him so, why she forgave him even though he caused her so much pain.

Somehow, she forgave him everything for Love.

And then, Mama was gone. She died after two months.

Two months... I guess we weren't so lucky after all. For with her went all of my smiles, my love, my Papa, and all the joys of my youth.

And all through the days and weeks to follow, I found Papa looking at me and looking away. I found myself looking in the mirror at the eyes I got from her and asked myself what it was that he found in me that made him look away. He had no Mama to run away from now, but he had me. It was February, dark and cold. I didn't know who I was and who this stranger, this Father was, anymore.

So, it was no real surprise when he left me as well…

Funny, how I think about all this now. I had left these memories behind… or so I thought.

It's funny, how memories are coming on the surface when you don't want them to. Ironic, how you can remember things, sniplets of your past when all you want is forgetting the present and your future.

For now, I look at my reflection in the glass and turn away, hating myself. Was it because of me that Papa ran away? Was it my fault that Mama died alone? I don't know anymore.

The mirror has always been my enemy, because mirrors are able to see through my mask. Mirrors are able to see through my many disguises, mirrors remind me of the fact that I'm weak and a failure.

Mirrors show you the truth, mirrors don't lie, mirrors are cold, mirrors are harsh, mirrors don't let you live in your fantasies…

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

Thump, thump. Thump thump

And now, I cry silently, like a small child. My hearts beats monotonously.

…who's the fairest of them all?

Thump THUMP thump. Thump THUMP thump.

I realize I've been wrong. My heart starts beating louder and more in rhythm. I've been to the bottom and to the top, and I go back to the bottom.

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

Thump THUMP thump. Thump THUMP thump.

I cup my face in my hands. It's getting red now. I cradle myself, in search for comfort.

Thump THUMP thump. Thump THUMP thump.

I splash my face with water. I look into the mirror. I hate that image. It makes my blood boil.

…who's the first one left alone?

It's because of this image my mother died, it's because of this image my father left me, it's because of this image Robin doesn't love me.

Thump THUMP THUMP THUMP thump. Thump THUMP THUMP THUMP thump.

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

My body fills with anger. My fist flies at the mirror, smashing to pieces the horrible reflection.

Thump THUMP THUMP THUMP. Thump THUMP THUMP THUMP thump.

My hand is filled with blood. Mine. Small pieces of glass lie on the floor. I smile.

Thump THUMP THUMP THUMP. Thump THUMP THUMP THUMP thump.

I take a shard in my hand. I take it, and slide it across my skin.