A/N: Yes, people. This is it; this is the final chapter! I'll take this moment to thank everyone for their support (and reviews) and apologize for such an uncannily Big Fish-like ending that will thoroughly convince all of you that Velma has been spending way too much time with Roxie. OK, I'll stop dissing myself right now before I give any of you ideas... (Looks around in mild paranoia) But truthfully, I LOVE ALL OF YOU! If it weren't for you reviewers, this story would never have been written! And I am proud to announce that, at last, I have finally finished a long-term story! Sound the bugles and sing the alleluia chorus, and what a combo! And you way wanna keep your eyes peeled for a new romance story by me...but that's all I'll say at the moment... OK, I'll stop yakking now and let you read...and review... Hint, hint!

Chapter 10: Technicolor

When Velma woke up, it took her a while to place where she was. She stretched like a cat and massaged her neck, which was aching from using Roxie as a pillow. She didn't know what time it was, but it wasn't as if that really mattered, not when she had no idea who she was.

She just felt so confused. If was almost as if she had split into two separate personalities, one of them that was the Velma the world knew, the mirthless murderess who had taken the lives of the two people in the world who had mattered to her most without the blink of an eye, who was tough as they came, never shed a tear, and never needed nobody.

But perhaps that was just the Velma Kelly of legend; because there was another girl by that name there at the moment, the one whose eyes were red and mascara was streaked from crying out her tormented soul on Roxie's shoulder. She knew very well that she was Velma Kelly, but which one was a mystery to her in this equally unknown hour.

Of course, she'd always been an enigma to anyone brave or stupid enough to try to get under her skin, but it had never occurred to anyone that the mysterious Velma Kelly was also an enigma to herself.

So she sat there in the unmasked hour, trying to untangle the winding contradictories that were her thoughts. She felt relieved in a way that she had told Roxie. At least she knew that there was someone who understood her, even if she didn't understand herself.

Yet, telling her story aloud seemed to be inviting it back into her thoughts, her life even. And now that Roxie knew, she was weaker. She couldn't pretend she was immortal anymore, because Roxie knew the truth. Velma hated when people saw her vulnerable. It was a part of her she preferred to chain up in the confines of her own soul, and she'd gotten good at it, far too good.

But it was perhaps a blessing in disguise that Roxie knew now. Roxie wouldn't expect her to be perfect. And now at least one person fully understood the mystery that was Velma Kelly. As much as she would prefer to believe otherwise, she couldn't keep everyone out, especially when they wormed their way so close to her frozen heart. She could try, but she could not make her facade last forever, no matter what.

But then, she reasoned with herself, hadn't Roxie seen right through her from the start? Wasn't that why she had been so attracted to, yet so repelled by the newest little jazz killer from first confrontation? She had hated how that little and seemingly harmless blonde had put the whole world she had struggled to build for herself at bay, not to mention how forcefully the way Roxie's sugar-coated persona carefully hid the mean-streak within reminded her of Veronica.

But at the same time, Velma loved her more than she felt comfortable with, because while their outer wrappings were as different as night and day, Roxie was an awful lot like her, too.

Velma sighed as she gazed down into Roxie's peaceful, sleeping face. Roxie let out the soft content moan of a sleeping child and curled closer to Velma, her angel hair catching the light and spinning itself into gold. When she awoke, she'd ask questions. She'd want details now that Velma's story was out in the open and putting them there hadn't killed her. And Velma knew that she wouldn't have answers for most of the questions Roxie asked.

She'd want to know what happened to Velma's child. That Velma didn't know herself. She knew only what she remembered, how it broke what was left of her ragged heart once again when she had left the baby, that child who was too much like her mother, at an orphanage, and how those fierce almond eyes had stared up at her, a mirror image of the ones that gazed down upon the infant. Come to think of it, by now she would be the same age her mother had been when her already teetering world had finally come down upon her. That is, if she was even still alive.

Roxie would ask after what became of her father. She didn't know that either, and she wouldn't waste a care on it, except to hope that his fate had been something truly awful. And her mother? To say the least, Velma had long believed that mystique ran in her family.

And why had she agreed to do a double act with the sister she had hated so much? How and why had she met Charlie, that dirty scumbag, and married him? Velma could answer those questions, and there was only one answer that was one word long. Desperation.

And Roxie already knew the rest of the story. She wouldn't have to waste her breath asking about the murders, because she already knew exactly how that felt in the most direct way. It took one to know one, and know her she did.

Overtaken by a sudden bout of sleepiness she was sure had nothing to do with her physical welfare, Velma snuggled closer to Roxie's soft sleeping form and laid her head back down.

She dreamed. It was the first good dream she'd had in a while, a soaring uplifting dream that at the same time, seemed to have all the answers she'd been searching for. And they had been within her all along, had she reached far enough to touch them. And now they danced under her closed eyelids like a runaway cabaret show.

She was singing and dancing onstage. She was doing it alone, and she was good. Her movements were so smooth, almost fluid, and words to a song she had never heard before were now flowing easily from her lips...

While truckin' down the road of life,

Although all hope seems gone,

I just move on, I move on.

When I can't find a single star,

To hang my wish upon,

I just move on,

I move on...

The audience was considerably large, and only then did it occur to her that she knew every face in the crowd. There was Veronica and Charlie, arms around each other, beyond concealing their obvious intimacy. There was every stage manager and lucky man-whore she'd ever slept with and yelled at, District Attorney Harrison, even the police who had caught up with her after the last time she'd performed alone, and of course, her father, completely still, yet thoroughly disturbing in his presence alone. They yelled threats and curses at her, their faces distorted with hatred. But she hardly heard them. As far as she was concerned, they weren't even there. She couldn't waste her time on them, not when she had an act to perform.

So, she just kept on singing, pouring her heart and soul into it, and drinking in the pure unadulterated joy of performing something real. Then she finished, her joy reaching its peak, as she struck her final pose.

The nightclub was garishly silent for a moment as the angry faces from her past glared at her, singled out and vulnerable beneath the spotlight's glow. Then from somewhere in the audience, Vera and Roxie rose, arm in arm and smiling. Velma was struck by how they clashed, innocent, little, childlike Roxie and tall, dark, intimidating Vera, but somehow they went together. They stood, lone beacons of light in the darkness of the hopeless parade of Velma's past, and they applauded.

Then, two more members of the audience made themselves separate from the silent baleful multitude. A woman with silver-flecked black hair smiled apologetically up at her and brought her firm dark hands together. All the resentment locked up inside her melted away as Velma looked down at her mother's face.

I understand, Mother, her eyes said, I understand.

The girl beside her raised her bowed raven-haired head, and stared boldly at Velma. She couldn't have been more than seventeen, but her poise and demeanor were far beyond her years. Velma's breath caught as she met the eyes of her daughter.

The girl only flashed an eerily familiar crooked grin at her. I understand, Mom. Her hands then added to the sweet harmony of the applause.

Then Mama appeared, smile as big as her figure, yet motherly and proud.

...Then, Billy, shaking his head like he could never quite believe her.

...Then all the murderessess from the Cook County Jail...

Then...

And in the very center of it all were Vera and Roxie, clapping vigorously and laughing as the ovation grew and grew, girlish giggle and deep-throated howl blending like music. Velma felt like laughing now herself, so full of a joy that was not limited by gravity. She turned her nose up at the still sneering ghosts of her past. She didn't need them, they didn't matter, and she was never as alone as she had thought. So she laughed that rare treat of a laugh and took center stage.

Velma bowed.