Author's Note: nods head, raises eyebrow, moves on. please note, I am not
familiar with Paris geography. I have only visited the city once, and even
then for three days. the train station Asher Jacobs is at is based on the
one I too visited. Richie's apartment I have created, and have situated
the bar roughly in between. As is the Eiffel Tower. If this is
geographically incorrect, let us pretend. perhaps? After all, this is AU.
(
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
September 10 2004, 2300 PM, A Paris Train Station
Alone, she stood at the train platform. Cold, and now with nowhere to go, for her train had come and left, and she had not boarded. This had been what she had wanted; what she had needed. To escape a world of both immortality and reality, and to escape to the one place she had always called home.
She had wanted none of this: death and immortality; abuse at the hands of her mentor; scars forever written on her wrists when all her other scars healed before she had seen them, before she had noted they had existed. This trip was supposed to have been the end. Tonight, she had planned to escape who she had been; to murder Asher Jacobs to start anew.
Instead, she still remained on Paris soil. A thousand reasons ran through her mind and blinked behind her eyes, but only one truly mattered. Richie Ryan. She had felt safe in his arms. She could not remember when she had last felt safe.
Sighing, she took her bag and guitar in hands, and stepped gingerly to the street level, and into the empty parking lot. She had one hour to go. She felt as if she had been through hell and back, and wanted nothing more than to find her personal paradise. But she no longer believed in paradise, and she no longer believed in fantasy.
It had been her mother who had first told her of fairies. Her earliest memory was of listening to the story of the Sleeping Beauty and her three fairy friends. She had been curled in her mother's lap, with her head against shoulder, and with her mother's arms looped around her waist. Her father was in the kitchen, on the phone with work, and the sound of his voice wafted in the living room like gentle music. Somewhere, real music played in the form of Lauren's rock, and Zachary's lap. She had been only three, and in dreams, asleep in her mother's arms, she thought she saw fairies in the air.
Life had killed her fairies. When she had pleaded for them to come, begged them to offer her their help and their guidance, they had not come. She had been abandoned to the cruel hands of life.
It was cold, and Asher Jacobs shivered. She was not prepared to stay another night. She had no hotel room, very little money, and no food. She wanted to walk nowhere, and she could not afford another taxi ride. She wanted to sleep here: in the cold night, and to allow the darkness to wrap her inside like a blanket. She wanted to freeze and to die, over and over and over. She wanted to never awake.
She would not. It would do no good. No matter how many times she died, she would wake, and she would live. She already had the scars of her failed attempt; she knew not to try again.
It was the hour, she knew. Tomorrow was the anniversary. Third since it had happened. She did not want to be alone. Swinging, the duffel bag over her shoulder, and gripping the guitar case in hand, she wrapped her sweater-coat tightly around her shivering form. She knew only one place to go.
She would find her way to Richie's. She needed to feel safe; she needed to know someone cared.
September 10 2004, 2300 PM, A Paris Train Station
Alone, she stood at the train platform. Cold, and now with nowhere to go, for her train had come and left, and she had not boarded. This had been what she had wanted; what she had needed. To escape a world of both immortality and reality, and to escape to the one place she had always called home.
She had wanted none of this: death and immortality; abuse at the hands of her mentor; scars forever written on her wrists when all her other scars healed before she had seen them, before she had noted they had existed. This trip was supposed to have been the end. Tonight, she had planned to escape who she had been; to murder Asher Jacobs to start anew.
Instead, she still remained on Paris soil. A thousand reasons ran through her mind and blinked behind her eyes, but only one truly mattered. Richie Ryan. She had felt safe in his arms. She could not remember when she had last felt safe.
Sighing, she took her bag and guitar in hands, and stepped gingerly to the street level, and into the empty parking lot. She had one hour to go. She felt as if she had been through hell and back, and wanted nothing more than to find her personal paradise. But she no longer believed in paradise, and she no longer believed in fantasy.
It had been her mother who had first told her of fairies. Her earliest memory was of listening to the story of the Sleeping Beauty and her three fairy friends. She had been curled in her mother's lap, with her head against shoulder, and with her mother's arms looped around her waist. Her father was in the kitchen, on the phone with work, and the sound of his voice wafted in the living room like gentle music. Somewhere, real music played in the form of Lauren's rock, and Zachary's lap. She had been only three, and in dreams, asleep in her mother's arms, she thought she saw fairies in the air.
Life had killed her fairies. When she had pleaded for them to come, begged them to offer her their help and their guidance, they had not come. She had been abandoned to the cruel hands of life.
It was cold, and Asher Jacobs shivered. She was not prepared to stay another night. She had no hotel room, very little money, and no food. She wanted to walk nowhere, and she could not afford another taxi ride. She wanted to sleep here: in the cold night, and to allow the darkness to wrap her inside like a blanket. She wanted to freeze and to die, over and over and over. She wanted to never awake.
She would not. It would do no good. No matter how many times she died, she would wake, and she would live. She already had the scars of her failed attempt; she knew not to try again.
It was the hour, she knew. Tomorrow was the anniversary. Third since it had happened. She did not want to be alone. Swinging, the duffel bag over her shoulder, and gripping the guitar case in hand, she wrapped her sweater-coat tightly around her shivering form. She knew only one place to go.
She would find her way to Richie's. She needed to feel safe; she needed to know someone cared.