Title: a storm whereon they ride
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Byron
Warnings: outside pov
Pairings: OMC/OMC, Kurt/OMC
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 945
Point of view: third
Prompt: Florence + the Machine's "Only If for a Night"
The last time Tonya talked to her brother, it was Thursday night and he said he'd be going to his favorite club on Friday. She told him she'd call him on Saturday to discuss his adventures and that she was proud of him for getting back in the game; his break-up with Charlie had been bitter and full of horribleness on both sides, though of course she was totally in Alex's court. Charlie was a douchebag who didn't deserve her baby brother.
When she calls on Saturday morning, Alex doesn't answer.
He doesn't on Sunday, either.
.
When Alex was eighteen, four years ago, he disappeared. Tonya and Mom went to the police; three days later, after ignoring over a hundred calls, Alex stumbled home, high on his ex-best friend's cocktail of drugs.
Tonya knows what the police would say if she went to them now.
.
Tonya knocks on every door in every apartment building within three miles of Alex's favorite club. It takes her two days.
Only one person, a woman about her age, remembers Alex; she says that Alex left with somebody, a man whose face she never saw, but he was about Alex's height, with dark hair.
Alex has been gone for four days. She calls Mom, and even though Dad says it's just Alex and he'll come stumbling back high on something new, Mom and Tonya both know that Alex has been clean and sober for four years now. He's about to graduate and go out and help people, just like Ms. Georgiana helped him.
He left with that man, and that man did something to him, and no one at the club can tell her anything, and going there every night doesn't help her find a tall guy with dark hair because they're all tall with dark hair.
.
When Alex has been gone for a week, Tonya goes to the police, and she tells them that the woman in 5A saw Alex leave with someone, and though she calls Officer Ryers five days in a row, nothing ever comes of it.
She goes back to 5A to plead with the woman for any scrap of information she can dig out of her head, but 5B tells her that 5A fell down, hit her head, and died.
That's too much of a coincidence, and her big sister's intuition is screaming at her, but the apartment complex wipes its security footage every night. Right there in the building manager's office, Tonya breaks down and sobs.
.
Tonya goes home because she needs to hug her mother.
Mom goes back with her to see Officer Ryers, and she doesn't believe his promise to look for Alex.
5A is dead, there's no security footage at her apartment, and the club has nothing of note, either.
It's hopeless.
Alex is gone and there's no way to find him and the last thing Tonya ever told him was to have fun. She pushed him to get back out there, find someone new.
It's her fault he's gone.
.
Five years later, Detective Ryers calls Tonya and tells her they found her baby brother.
Tonya calls Mom and Dad, and they all go to the police station, and Detective Ryers explains that a company was developing an empty lot and found Alex while digging. Detective Ryers says that they'll do what they can, and he's sorry, and it's all Tonya can do not to scream at him because if he'd just believed her and done his job five years ago -
Dad squeezes Tonya's hand. Mom pulls her in tight and thanks Detective Ryers through the tears. They all go home, back to the house Tonya grew up in, and she stumbles up the stairs to the room that used to be Alex's, that Mom turned into a library when Alex moved out. Tonya stands in the doorway and tries to remember what it used to look like.
She's already started forgetting Alex's voice.
.
Tonya moves away from New York because she can't stand the city anymore. It killed her brother. Her company has an opening to Tulsa and she goes.
During her first tornado, she huddles in the cellar and when the roaring gets close to enough to hear, she thinks, That's how I feel.
But Alex… he wouldn't want to be the reason she gives up. So she drives to the river, stares down into it, and lets everything go: her grief, her rage, her guilt. Because Alex is dead. He's been buried. She has no way to find who did it, or punish them, and Detective Ryers won't tell her any more than he already has. She can do nothing…
Except move on. Let Alex go. Live her life to the fullest to honor her brother.
So she says, "Alex, I love you. Goodbye." She goes home, calls her mother, and talks about all the ways Tulsa is different from where she grew up and New York City, and it's a good conversation.
Alex has been dead for eight years. Tonya has been, too.
But she's still alive and it's time to start acting like it.
She has no idea if she'll ever have kids, but she does know, staring at Alex's picture, that if she has a son… she won't be naming him Alexander. Alex had told her that was the creepiest thing in Harry Potter, naming all the children with dead people's names. He'd laughingly told her that none of his kids would have any family names.
"Bye, Lex," she whispers, setting the picture back down and heading to the kitchen. Breakfast, then work, then dinner with Danielle from the office.
She's alive. She needs to start living.