Title: Making Love Out of Nothing
Rating: T
Summary: AU: Nick was supposed to have an heir and Ziggy was supposed to be the one to give it to him. It was surprisingly difficult to make that come about.
The firstborn Goode sons were amazingly fertile men.
That was one of the things Nick's dad had told him. He'd said to always wear a condom unless Nick was sure he wanted the girl to become Mrs. Nick Goode because knocking a girl up was a one and done deal. It had been since their ancestor Solomon had married his second wife. Nick was to pick a girl and get the job done. Marry her, get her pregnant. Or get her pregnant and marry her. Either way. As firstborn, he was required to carry on the line. The sooner the better. It was one of his duties.
He chose Ziggy. He'd noticed her long before his dad's revelation about the Goode family legacy and it seemed like perfect timing. He'd learned of his duty and Ziggy flirted back when he made that move towards her. She was going to be his. Nick was confident in it despite having screwed up at first. He'd made a misstep with her, but as he was new to the whole firstborn destiny thing, he figured he had some time to get it straightened out and get things back on track. He stole the clothes she'd been wearing that night, put them in a special box as a memento of their shared past, and dated around for three years while he tried to figure out how to get her back.
He took his dad's words seriously and always wore a condom with the other girls. None of them compared to her, so he decided he'd just have to go see her. It was an honest surprise when she let him into her house. Still, she had isolated herself. She was starving for touch and affection and he was more than willing to show her how much he cared for her…and leave in her a piece of himself that was guaranteed to bring her into the family.
She didn't call. One and done hadn't worked.
Nick puzzled over it. Why hadn't it worked? It was supposed to. He studied the female reproductive system and concluded that he must have gotten her on the wrong day. She hadn't been fertile and surely her fertility mattered too? It couldn't all be on him no matter what his dad had said. There was no way to monitor her cycle unless he stole her trash and he wasn't about to do that. It was unethical, not to mention creepy.
Three years later, he'd built up such a need for her that it was almost painful. She was in his mind and when he couldn't take care of it himself to any satisfaction anymore, he went to see her. They argued, words flying about, and he couldn't wait to take her to bed. She was beautiful, that fire in her eyes right up until she melted against him and let him inside her. This time it would work. This time, Ziggy would get pregnant and he'd be able to save her.
Except, she didn't pick up the phone when he called. When two months passed without a call from her, he began to doubt his dad's assertion that he could 'one and done' it, though he wasn't about to chance it with another woman. Ziggy was supposed to be the mother of his children. He'd asked for her to live, with the assumption on his part that she'd become his wife. She was alive, so why couldn't he close this deal?
It was a puzzle, and he took up drawing again, a thing he'd left behind years earlier, sketching her over and over. He didn't think he was particularly good at it, but it gave him an outlet for all of the thoughts in his head. Nick relived their nights together, hating himself for failing as a firstborn Goode. He searched out pictures of her and put them in an album, yet when they were all the same grainy pictures from articles on the camp massacre, he took up photography and sat outside her house to snap pictures of her on those rare occasions she went outside. The act soothed the need inside of him somewhat.
He had pictures when she got a dog. Others when she cut her hair and he mourned those long red locks chopped off at shoulder length. He'd have to encourage her to grow it again when they got married.
It wasn't them who got married, however, it was his brother. Nick tried to be happy for him and wasn't really. It wasn't fair that his brother got to have Nick's perfect life. Why was Will getting Nick's life? Nick was the one with the burden on him. He should be the one reaping the benefits.
Going back to Ziggy was the only thing he could think to do. This was the time. It had to be. They were going to have their happily-ever-after because why else was she even alive? Wasn't it their turn? He told her he loved her this time and tried hard to make her understand that.
One and done once more failed.
It wasn't possible. Why was it failing? He'd done everything the way he was supposed to. She was supposed to be his: his wife, the mother of his children. Ziggy was supposed to be in his house and bed right now and she wasn't. Nick wasn't willing to entertain the idea that she wasn't supposed to be his. Of course she was. He'd asked for her to live and firstborn Goode men got what they asked for. He'd saved her once and he'd save her again, yet when he attempted to stay in her life, she was stubborn and it was just like her, too. She was his stubborn, irritating love, throwing up a middle finger at him like she once had at the camp. How much more chasing did she want him to do?
By the time another three-year anniversary was on the way, Nick began to sweat about the whole heir issue. He did what he never thought he'd do: he picked up her trash every night for three months leading up to it, making charts and acting like an idiot to figure out when her damn eggs would be fertile for him.
No one questioned him patrolling Shadyside every night.
Miraculously, her fertile days, as he'd calculated them, fell right on their anniversary. This time, Nick was determined to get a baby on her. It had to happen. He was fertile, she was fertile. What was the problem? They argued the entire time, though it didn't deter him from his goal.
Come on guys. Swim already. Find that egg and do your duty.
He left certain he'd knocked her up this time and that he'd be hearing from her soon. Nick made mental plans for when she told him the news. He'd act surprised, then swoop in and bring her to his house. They'd get married. They'd have a cute red-haired baby boy….
It didn't happen.
His body failed him.
His supposedly magically charged 'one and done' sperm failed him.
He had to laugh because it was starting to feel ridiculous in the way Shakespearean comedies and tragedies did. Why was he not getting what he wanted? He was the heir. He was the firstborn. If only he could get her to see that she needed him in her life.
But the next time he went to her, Ziggy didn't answer the door. She'd warned him she wouldn't and she didn't. He stood there waiting, shocked by it. He knew she was home. He could hear her on the other side of the door and yet she didn't open it and invite him inside like before. It was unfathomable. Ziggy, the love of his life, was ignoring him. She was ignoring their connection. How was she going to be the mother of his children if she wouldn't open the door?
He had no heir and it was almost time for another sacrifice.
He'd have to make it himself. There was no rule against that. Previous Goode men had done that before they found their perfect mates. Technically, he could make as many sacrifices as he wanted.
Maybe he could use this sacrifice to reestablish their original connection.
The idea swirled about his mind and, as events transpired, he went to Ziggy's house and left her a note. He wanted her to remember that he had believed her. He wanted her to…. Well, he just wanted her. She could make what she wanted of the note as long as it got him back in her bed. There was plenty of time left for her to give him an heir and after this was done, he'd pursue her fully. He wouldn't let her shove him away. Hell, this time she'd have his baby if he had to tie her to his damned bed until she conceived like she was supposed to.
To find her at the mall and realize she knew the truth about him hurt. She wasn't supposed to be there and not looking at him like he'd broken her heart. She wasn't supposed to know. Ziggy was supposed to stay in her house and wait for him to take her home. She was his. She'd always been his. He didn't want her to die.
But the truth had to be protected. She'd tell and she'd never shut her mouth. She'd burn him and both towns down.
Well, that was unfortunate.
He'd just have to 'one and done' one of the women his brother kept introducing him to. He'd get on that right after he gave his hero speech for killing Deena, that trashy piece of shit bitch –
Death came as a complete surprise to Nick.
The first time Ziggy had sex with Nick Goode, three years to the day after the massacre, she spent the month after praying that her period would arrive on time. She may have weakened and let him in, but the last thing she wanted was to have to tell him she was pregnant. He hadn't used a condom any of the times that night and she was surprised when the blessed blood actually came. How was she not pregnant? She'd practically expected that having unprotected sex would knock her up because she was a Shadysider. Those sorts of things happened to Shadysiders. It felt like an odd mercy that she wasn't pregnant.
She wasn't about to go through that wondering again, braving the outside world to go down to the free clinic to get birth control pills. The pills were just in case. It wasn't like she was planning on having sex again. Ziggy felt better being prepared. She'd prepared for everything else, so why not that as well?
It seemed a good plan, because three years later, Nick was at her door again. Once more, she was weak and let him in. Why? He seemed so caring and concerned. He was good at that, making her feel like he did care. Despite herself, she let him into her house and later, her bed. They argued, that old one between them about the curse and his betrayal. He didn't think he betrayed her. It was almost cute how wrong he was.
The sex was better. It was passionate and close to perfect. In the moment, she thought she could have loved him once. In another world, maybe they could have been together. Maybe they could have been happy.
He didn't know about the pills and she didn't see any reason to tell him. They were in her kitchen, where she usually took them with her morning coffee to start her day, which was what she did right after he left. She made a cup, took her pill, and thanked every higher power she could think of that birth control pills existed.
For two months, Nick called and left her messages. She ignored the calls, deleting the messages immediately after hearing them.
Another three-year anniversary later, the argument ran hotter than the sex. He tried to tell her he loved her, which made no sense. How could he love her when he didn't know her anymore? He knew her body only, which he did demonstrate to a rather satisfactory degree before telling her not to be stubborn and pick up the damn phone when he called. He loved her, wanted to stay in touch, wanted….
Ziggy stopped listening and took her pill with a shot of Jack that morning instead of coffee. He left messages for nearly five months before stopping.
A part of her knew that wouldn't be the end of it. It was like they were connected, always going back and forth and never able to move forward one way or another. They were in each other's blood.
She began to keep her birth control packaging and empty packets, tossing them into a big box in one room. When the box was full, she decided she'd take the items to the dump rather than let the trashmen pick it up. It seemed stupid and yet she couldn't stop. Maybe it was just one more quirk of her isolation from everyone. After all, she had alarms set for everything under the sun now. Why couldn't this be one more odd thing about her? She was the woman who hoarded her birth control empties….
At twelve years after the massacre, they were both different people, shaped by what their lives had become. She wrote cliched teen horror novels that were never good enough to be successful, yet were lucrative enough that she had a continuing contract. Nick became Sheriff. They were both older and cynical and she let him in on that anniversary somehow expecting something other than their usual cycle.
Their argument raged even during the sex, which was tinged with desperation and roiling emotions. Ziggy accused him of using her for massacre anniversary guilt sex, while Nick accused her of using him to have a touch of reality in her life of sheer fantasy.
This time….
This time scared her. He was intense in a way he'd never been, going into her over and over, as if he had something to prove by having her; as if he was on a mission of some sort.
"I do love you," he whispered in the dark before dawn, hand clasping hers. "You have no idea how much. I'd do anything for you, Ziggy."
She shoved his hand away. "Except believe me, Nick. You'll never do that." She ordered him from her house, said she wasn't going to open the door for him again.
He looked at her with an almost cockiness in his eyes, as if to say that 'of course she would because she always did'.
Ziggy downed her pill with a quarter bottle of Jack that morning, hoping a drunken haze would take away the memory of his hands and mouth on her body. She cried over the boy she'd liked and the man she pushed away, uncertain why she couldn't let him in. It'd be easier if she could open up to him fully, yet a part of her recoiled at the idea for no reason that she could find save his betrayal. It still hurt that he'd not backed her up after telling her he believed her.
His messages were short and emotional, almost pleading with her to talk to him and not shut him out this time. They lasted nearly seven months. She cried with each message.
Three years later, Ziggy kept her word to him and it was the hardest thing she'd done in years. She didn't answer when he knocked and when she looked out the window and saw his face, she almost relented, going so far as to go to the door, her hand on the latch. She pressed her forehead to the panel and made herself stay still. They couldn't keep doing this dance. One of them had to cut the tie between them. What they were doing wasn't healthy. She had to cut him free so he could go to someone else.
It was a relief when he left, though she continued to take the pills just in case.
When Deena brought her the truth, Ziggy was stunned and horrified. She'd trusted him. She'd let Nick into her life in the most intimate of ways and he'd been the bad guy all along.
It broke her heart and then he ripped her heart out fully when he was willing to take her down to death with him. All his claims about love had been a lie. A man who loved her wouldn't have done that. A man who loved her would protect her the way he was willing to protect his precious secret.
Now….
Now Nick Goode was dead and she wondered how much of what he'd shown her had been real. He'd lied about so many things. Had he ever shown her truth?
She threw out her birth control pills. All of them. The filled and the empties, with no compulsion left to keep any of them. Then she left the big box at the dump.
Nick's sister-in-law dropped a box on her porch at dusk and drove away without giving her an explanation. Ziggy brought the box inside and opened it. On the top was an album. It was filled with pictures of her over the years, many obviously surveillance photos. By the last ones, Nick had become quite the decent photographer. Closing the album, she looked at the rest of the items. There were notebooks of drawings of her, some of them explicit. There were things he must have taken from her trash and, on the bottom, were the clothes she'd been wearing the night of the massacre.
Maybe obsession had been what Nick thought was love.
The box should be taken to the cops as more evidence.
Ziggy burned it all and felt lighter.
She went to Nick's funeral. Of the people who were there, she was the only one who wasn't a reporter of some kind. They tried to get a statement, but she refused to say a word. Finally, they all left and she was alone with the gravesite.
Ziggy remembered the boy he'd been, the one who'd claimed he didn't want to be what he'd ultimately become. Had there ever been a point where he'd been genuine with her? She chose to believe he had, if only for a brief second in time. She made her peace with Nick Goode and all he'd been to her.
Christine walked away.