Disclaimer: I am not doing this for profit; none of this is mine.
Chapter Summary: Who shot Paul Young? A post-ep for "Down the Block There's a Riot."
Coda: Season Seven
A story by Ryeloza
Ten: Down the Block
I.
Gaby can't remember the last time she thought clearly about anything. Her life used to be so simple—she took what she wanted when she wanted it, and like a petulant child, would throw a tantrum if denied. She knows that Carlos thinks that motherhood has matured her in some way, but the truth is that it's just made that selfish impulse worse. Now that she denies it more often, it manifests itself in ways that make her hate herself.
She wants Grace. She has never said this out loud, but she wrote it down today and put it in a letter that her daughter read. Carlos is furious—he's been raging all night about how stupid she is and how Grace is gone and not really theirs. He says that so many times that she finally breaks down, smacking him over and over and shrieking, "She is mine! My daughter! How dare you say that to me!" She doesn't understand how he can deny her this pain and this grief. Of all the things she's ever demanded from him, this is the one thing that she wants the most and he won't let her have it. She hates him for it.
She leaves the house eventually. Carlos went upstairs to check on the girls and Gaby fled, feeling suffocated in her own home for the first time in years. She hates Wisteria Lane at night. The deceptive quiet. The homes nestled together, so innocuous. It's like looking at a world where everyone is happy but her. In the day it's easier to pretend because she can see the people and their problems, but at night it's just her, alone in her pain.
Signs of the riot still litter the street, and that just makes everything worse. She will never be able to forgive herself for almost losing Juanita here today. She doesn't think that Carlos will either. There is a blister on their marriage that is full of resentment. It's just another thing to think about and worry about because despite how mad they are at one another, they are also desperately in love. She can't lose Carlos. It would kill her.
She is going to die here, she thinks. On a street that is ripe with death. This place has been like her coffin in so many ways that sometimes she believes that she's already experiencing a living death.
This thought rings in her brain so brilliantly, mixing with her fear and anguish and pain and regret so purely that she isn't surprised when the gun catches her eye. She could believe that she willed it to life; it isn't such a stretch. It glints under the streetlight, beckoning her, and as Gaby bends to pick it up, she realizes where she is.
Mary Alice's house.
It's a sign, she thinks.
The gun is heavy in her hand. She's never held one before in her life and she doesn't like how it feels. A gunshot wound seems an inelegant way to die, but holding this gun in her hand she can also see why it is so easy. One simple pull of the trigger. She wonders if it was so easy for Mary Alice. She wonders if it could be easy for her.
She hears a door shut across the street and instinctively she hides, skulking back into the shadows like she can hide her sins from the world. It takes her a minute to find the person who broke the silence, but Paul Young isn't being subtle and he isn't hiding. He looks positively giddy, in fact; he's so close to where she stands that she can see the grin on his face.
She loathes him. He is the reason that Juanita almost died today. He is the reason that this street wasn't safe for her baby to run away and hide from her pain, just as Gaby wants to do now. And she can't either because of him.
Why can't she just be allowed to grieve?
Gaby doesn't know what she's doing; she can't even think any more. She feels too much. It's all too much.
She raises the gun and fires.
II.
The call came from Lynette and as soon as he picked up the phone, he felt his heart sink and his hands began to shake. He doesn't believe in psychics or ESP or any of that other voodoo, but today he had a moment of clear intuition: something was terribly wrong.
Susan in the hospital.
Susan fighting for her life.
Susan nearly trampled to death.
And it's all because of Paul Young.
Susan is still in surgery when he arrives at the hospital. Lynette and Bree are there with exhausted explanations that he doesn't want to hear, and eventually they grow quiet and just sit with him. It feels like hours before the doctor comes out and says that Susan will live, and Mike cries for the first time in as long as he can remember. Susan has always been invincible, and now for the first time she is cracked and flawed and he actually has a moment where he realizes that she isn't going to live forever. Something—someone—could easily destroy her. If not this time, then the next.
He tells Lynette and Bree to leave, says that he will pick up MJ in the morning. They look at him with concern, but do as he says. He has no intention of sitting there uselessly, though. He has no intention of letting Paul get away with this. No intention of letting this happen again.
There is a gun hidden in the apartment that Susan doesn't know about because she hates guns. He takes it out and puts in the bullets and thinks about how Susan would tell him not to do this. She doesn't know that he should have done this years ago when he had the chance. Paul Young is not going to take another love from him. Not this love. Not when she is everything.
He parks a block away and walks to Wisteria Lane. His footsteps are the only sound that breaks the silence, and as he walks he imagines the riot. He imagines Susan going down and no one being there to help her and Paul just standing there and laughing. Mike has never been so angry in his entire life—he's shaking from head to toe, curling his hands into fists just to keep them still. There is a key to the house in his right hand and the gun sits heavily over his heart. He is going to do this. Finally. When it is almost too late.
He is about to cross the street when the door opens and Paul comes outside. It's easy to slink back into the shadows; easy to tread on light feet and track Paul's movements. The bastard moves with a joy that makes Mike want to forget the gun and simply choke the life out of him. But he can't risk that; he needs to do this. He needs to do this now.
He raises the gun and fires.
III.
Being on Wisteria Lane is like something out of a dream. He looks around and sees ghosts of a life that was once his, but it is a world that is intangible now. There is where he learned to ride his bike, speeding up and down the street and imagining that no one can ever go as fast as he. There is where he had his first kiss, a quick peck of lips against lips before the girl pushed him away and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand—it was still amazing. There is where he crashed his father's car the first day he had his license, blowing out the headlight and dinging the bumper. He can almost see himself stumbling from the car and stuttering apologies and his father had just been repeatedly asking, "Are you okay? Are you okay?"
Yes, it's all just a dream, long forgotten and distant now. He knows he can't go back. He thinks that this should be a realization of adulthood, a sign of maturity, but it feels more like something that was stolen from him. This is your life, Zach Young, and then one day without warning it's simply gone. That loss put an anger inside of him that was dark and thick—one that has been bubbling under the surface for years and years. It seems right that here and now, it has finally erupted.
He watches from the shadows for awhile, scowling at the garbage that litters the street and the signs of destruction that linger. It's like a physical representation of his own scars—the beautiful parts of him turned ugly, and he hates it. The street is silent, houses locked up tight and families sealed away from their dream turned nightmare. For the first time, Zach feels like he has something in common with these families: they have been robbed just as he has. And all of the blame falls on his father's shoulders.
His father ruined this place today.
His father has a new wife who is closer to Zach's age than to his own. A woman he puts his arms around and smiles at and acts like is the only woman in the world. It's such a lie. Such a horrendous lie.
His father is a murderer.
His father abandoned him.
His father stopped caring about him long ago—maybe the day his mother put a bullet in her head.
As Zach watches his father come out of the house, all of these thoughts war in his mind, pulling him toward that anger he's suppressed so long. It's so much worse, being back on this street. It brings back the other pain too—the one he has buried so deep for so long that he really forgot that it existed.
His mother. His damn selfish mother. This all began with her, right here.
Hatred is so strong and powerful, and Zach is tired of pretending that it doesn't rule his life. He's tired of not doing anything about it. And standing there in this horrible dream, he remembers…He remembers everything.
He raises the gun and fires.