To Sleep No More
Epilogue
By Ginny :)
Due to a number of Emails and reviews requesting that I tie all the loose ends in this, I've come to write this final chapter. I'm just trying to come up with a better, more satisfying ending, and I hope you all like it, especially those who requested that I do this!
The line about phoenixes was stolen from my history classes' cheesy speech on the Boer War. Just be thankful I didn't start talking about bits of oranges [don't ask]. :)
Umm some of the ending of this involves heaven/ hell etc. I'm a New Ager, and don't believe in Hell [except as a state of mind or something, but let's not get into psycho-babble here], so by MY beliefs, everyone ends up in the same place, if they don't stay on Earth and... er... yeah. Plus it's a really useful plot hole, so don't get at me about it, OK? LoL
Hope you enjoy the final chapter. Doom and woe, and all that ^_^
Ginny :)
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~*~ Jacqueline's POV~*~
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Now it's ten years later, and I'm still here. Still wasting away in this desert they call England. Things have changed. Not a great deal, but they have changed.
A few years ago now, the government got organised enough to elect a new Prime- minister, a new Parliament and a new House of Lord and House of Commons. Guns are illegal once again. The city is being re-built, rising from the ashes that were once a great city, like a phoenix from the cinders of a fire. People who left to seek better lives in Europe and America are coming back here. They don't always like what they see.
They call me a murderer.
I don't deny it. I killed for revenge and for money, that's all there is to it, but I don't regret it. It's not something you can let yourself regret. I hated Spacers and continue to hate them with all my heart. In a war, you have to hate your enemy, otherwise... what's the point? Besides, you don't know how much I would give for 5 more minutes with my daughter or husband, whom the Spacers not only hurt, but left to die. They could have been saved. I know it.
I wish with every nerve in my body just for a few measly seconds with my family. Who am I kidding? It's not going to happen. I won't see them until I die, and perhaps not even then. I don't want to die. I think I'm scared of what might be waiting for me.
Most Spacers are still in hiding, I suspect, but some have begun to emerge. They are now protected by law, and a new police force of sorts has been introduced. Peelers tread the dirty streets, ready to break up trouble. People don't want a whole lot of new trouble started. It's trouble that got us into this mess in the first place. I look at the Spacers with hatred in my guts, but killing them is no longer a job, and as much as I dislike them, I think I have had my revenge. At least for now.
MacBeth may have said, "I am in blood stepped in so far, I may well continue as go e're", but I can't live the rest of my life on quotes. Besides, look what happened to MacBeth. If I don't end up like him, I'll turn out like his wife; mad. Old thoughts tormenting me, blood always on my conscience... and I know I'm getting old more quickly then I should do.
I married young-- seventeen-- and was a killer by twenty. Now I am thirty, and sick of the world. I have little energy left. What's the point in living on? I have no vocation in life. It's odd, with no-one to die for, I no longer have anyone to live for.
I suppose I'll just continue, until time stops.
~*~
Is it possible for someone to forgive another; the person who was the doom of them? Who betrayed them, albeit unwittingly, and who was to blame for so much?
Now that's a question only they can answer.
Harry would have given anything to be able to forgive Ron. He had spent hours contemplating it, staring into space, sometimes with Ginny's not-so-thin now arm around his shoulders. She told him what she knew of what had happened, and how Ron had tried to save her. Harry continued to stare into space, almost as if he could see through the clouds, sky, through the universe, to... where he used to live. Earth. The United Kingdom. England. London. Walthamstow. His old dug out. Almost.
As much as he'd wanted to, Harry could not see past the blue of the scented sky. The dead can only walk on Earth if there is someone left there they wish to see, or get vengeance against.
Ron was not down there.
Friendship is as thick as mud, as solid as stone, and... perhaps cannot be broken, even by the worst of things, if it is strong enough. Mud hardens over time, and becomes rock and almost stone. Stone crumbles, but the fragments will always remain.
Their friendship was strong.
The friends were reunited.
Friends they remained.
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Now, that really IS the end! Woohooo!
Please read and review?
Ginny :)
