A/N: Please take a look at dfmtinfo DOT tumblr dot com for supplementary information regarding pictures or background information of some of the lesser mentioned characters. Likewise if there's a question you'd like answered or something you want more information on please let me know!
Rated Mature for mentions of suicide, though no explicit content is brought up.
January 11, 2012
Cassandra stared numbly ahead as the priest's words droned on. All she could hear was a static buzzing, anyway. The young woman remained dry eyed as her gaze remained locked on the casket that contained Susan Moore's body. Her heart lurched as her mind put that phrase together.
Susan Moore's body. It might have been so impersonal. The obituary had been uninspired. The coroner, too, had spoken in clinical tones. For Cass, however, those words strung together in that phrasing weren't impersonal. They were more than meaningful – they were her entire world. Her entire existence was redefined by those words.
Her mother was dead. Susan's laugh, her joy and her love would never be shared again.
Despite the rigidity of Cassandra's features, she couldn't help the tear that slid out of the corner of her eye and down her cheek. Feeling the hot warmth slide down, she curled her fingers into her palm. The bite of her nails was a comforting hurt. It was a distraction. It kept the tears at bay.
When Joe, two seats over, came to his feet and Sam emulated the movement Cassie rose as well. There was no unsteadiness. No hesitation. The pallbearers moved to the coffin's sides as the family stood. Watching them carefully proceed down the row and into the car the congregation stood as well. The dread silence of the church choked Cassandra, but she made no move to escape.
Instead she stood behind Samantha as she stood down at her feet. Her words had become limited ever since Jane had delivered the dreaded news. The trip home was a blur of shock and disbelief in her memory. She had pulled on jeans and a shirt though hadn't bothered to change her shoes or undo her hair or makeup. Rushing to the airport and catching the soonest flight home by hopping through various airports for the connections had been exhausting but it meant nothing to Cassandra Moore.
She was numb anyway.
Only when she had finally pulled up to the house that her mother and father shared together on January ninth did the reality sink in. Tripping into the home, she found family sitting at the dining room table. Absently Cass realized there was no seat left for her.
Disheveled and still processing the news, she had stared down at her mother's brother, her father and her sister. All were mute.
For hours all that Cass had done by way of speech had been that which was necessary to get her to her location. Finding the words to ask the questions that ached in her heart seemed impossible. For long moments she stood there with her knees trembling. Cassie's lips parted, shut again and then separated as if to speak.
"She killed herself."
The words were a near physical blow to Cassandra Moore. Sam's words had been flat and unemotional but the delivery couldn't salvage the message. Her teeth chattered as reality sunk in.
A quick hand reached out and clasped on Samantha's shoulders. Joe, sitting next to her, glared ferociously at his eldest daughter. "Don't say that." His anger was palpable, white hot.
Struggling to breathe, Cass had closed her eyes and let the white noise of shock sink into her mind. How long she leaned against the wall with her legs shaking like that she couldn't say. Only when arms wrapped ferociously around her waist did the young woman return her consciousness to the room.
She looked up at her uncle with dry eyes. His own were red, she noted absently.
"The wake is today," Jack managed to say though his words were far from the steady delivery that all the members of the Moore family had managed. "The funeral will be tomorrow."
Finally at this Cassandra responded. Pushing out of her uncle's arms she stepped away from the wall to stare in desperation at her father.
"What are you doing?!" It was a frantic demand, an almost hysterical one. Cass's voice shook as she looked over to Sam wildly. "Why are we burying her? This is Mom! Our Mom! You know her! She didn't want to be buried!"
The words that she managed to gasp out between the frantic chattering of her teeth were choked with a sob. It was the first tenable sign of emotion that Cassandra had given them. Somehow, though, the idea of her mother chained to the dirt when Susan had always expressed a desire for cremation had broke the chains of composure on the youngest person in the room.
"She'll be buried in the family plot," Joseph replied, his voice wrought with anger.
To argue would have been futile, Cass realized hopelessly. She stared at Joe for a moment, helpless, before wheeling away and fleeing from the dining room.
Cassandra Moore had not spoken with her family since. The wake that afternoon passed unremarkably. The funeral was a blur of faces and quiet, whispered sympathies in her memory. The people didn't matter. Neither did their words.
Staring down at her feet as she followed Samantha out of the church, Cass repressed a shudder. She felt sick. The palpable sensation of nausea creeping up the back of her throat made her shake as she stopped outside the building.
There was so much black. So much despair.
Her vacant stare was disrupted when someone stepped in front of her. It took Cass several long seconds to identify the figure. Blinking to focus her eyesight, and then again as she tried to process, she wrapped her arms tightly around herself in a gesture that could have only been considered defensive.
For long moments Richard and Cassandra simply looked at one another.
"I'm sorry for your loss," he began at last. She merely nodded in acknowledgement. Instead of ending the conversation it seemed only to serve as encouragement.
"I know how you must feel." His voice was cloying and only added to the nausea that besieged her. "Loss is terrible, baby. So tragic. But you'll find that great things come of it. You'll grow up out of it and be a better person because of what happened. You'll see. You can start over… I can help you-"
The hand that lashed out was faster than anyone watching could have imagined. The force behind the slap was equally shocking.
Cassandra Moore had been a ghost since her return from England. Her lack of animation was distressing, though hardly surprising in the wake of her mother's death. Now however that listlessness had receded into a nearly palpable rage.
"You," she hissed, voice shaking with her temper. "You understand nothing. Nothing will be the same. Nothing good will come from this. My mother is dead."
The hand that Cassandra had hit him with hadn't fallen to her side. Temper brought a hot flush to her cheeks as her eyes spat venom at the man.
"How dare you." She didn't know what to say. She didn't know the words to spit at him, the reply that could convey the measure of her hurt, anger or grief. Cass shook her head. "My mother is dead," she repeated as her voice dropped to a whisper. "She's dead. You can't possibly comprehend my grief."
It was as if a veil descended over her again. Hollowness returned, an aching emptiness that disguised her grief, covered her fear and her sorrow. She showed nothing other than moderate disinterest in the man in front of her.
Cass didn't bother with a farewell. Looking over to where her father's familiar car was idling, she picked her way through the parking lot to duck into the interior. It was a quiet drive to the cemetery with her father and sister in the front seat. Left to stare listlessly out the window, Cassandra let numbness take over her mind again. It hurt less than thinking.
That state carried her through the funeral.
As the attendees trickled away Cass remained standing at the foot of the grave. She watched as all the dirt was replaced over the casket. It was a bare patch of earth in a snow-covered world.
When Joseph came back to stand beside her Cassandra didn't bother looking over. She only felt the cold press of metal in her hands. The keys to his car.
"Your sister and I are going back with Alex," Joe said gruffly. She just nodded and listened to the last of the footsteps recede.
Straightening slowly, Cass slipped the keys into the pocket of her long wool coat. Looking around she realized that no one else was left. Joseph had been the only one to remain by the grave as the cemetery staff had finished burying it. With him gone, there was no one.
No one.
Empty.
No Susan. No Susan, whose bright laugh had always made her smile. No mother who had always known when to hug her daughter. No mother who understood when not to push. No soul who loved so freely, without reservation.
Choking on a sob, Cassandra sank to her knees. For the first time since Jane had spoken to her Cassie broke down and wept. Kneeling in the dirt, tears flooded down her cheeks in an unrelenting stream. She couldn't curb them.
She didn't want to.
Hunched over on the ground at the foot of the grave, Cass watched as her tears hit the ground. Anguish overtook her figure. Hurt had settled, intractably, in her heart and it would not move.
She did not mind. The hurt, the aching hollowness, the burning grief, the freezing anguish were tangible reminders of what she had lost. They were fitting reminders.
The world was paler now, the world had lost its laughter. All Cassandra could do was weep.
A/N: As a writer this is one of those chapters that required an almost painful amount of empathy to write and demanded my utmost sensitivity. These are hard topics - the loss of a parent, suicide, death in the family, and how to manage and process that grief. I tried to balance covering it for the literary demand, but remain gracious and respectful at the same time. If you've found that I've been particularly vague on the situation around Susan's death, however, know that it's not out of squeamishness but for a plot purpose. It will come back up later.
That all said: This chapter was very hard for me to write. The end isn't in sight however, the next is also going to be fairly brutal. There's something about the relationship of parents and children that makes it so terribly complex and those emotions are what this covers.
While Dream For Me Tonight is a story about romance, it's also a story about life and life, sometimes, is unkind. It hurts, it's hard and it can be painfully unkind. It's discovering who you are as a person and realizing along the way what that means to other people, that can build the most meaningful relationships.
Somber notes aside, thank you to everyone who reviewed (Theta-McBride & CrissYami) and I've been negligent in failing to thank all of you who have followed this story as well. To all of you- 4everYoung93, Arianna Mitoko, BlackBloodAlchemist, CrissYami, Dr Pantalons, LiveWithLove42, Theta-McBride, TomLokiLover, Ydria, akagami hime chan, algie888, beautifulsoul9786, cp6, thewhitelocks, .Geeko and xXxDragonxPhoenixXx, thank you so much! Your support means the world to me and even with this change of tone in the story I hope you all continue to enjoy reading.
Elle.