Life Beyond
(The Five Stages [of Grief])
Author: Kameka
Disclaimers: Don't own the characters, only borrowing, don't sue.
Spoilers: if you know the show (and have seen the series premiere), you won't be spoiled.
Notes: I started this a while ago, but will be using it as a form of therapy after someone close to me died. So.. this is for him. S.A.S. (2-5-40 - 5-29-04)
Summary: The characters of the show 'Wild Card' go through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) regarding Sue's accident.Prologue: "Alpha and Omega"
Susan Busiek turned over with a groan as her hand slapped her bedside table, seeking the alarm clock that was insistently reminding her that she had to wake up. She remained still for a moment, relishing the quiet and softness of her bed, before there was the crash of glass breaking downstairs in the kitchen. With another soft groan she levered herself up from the soft mattress and went into the bathroom to complete her morning routine, taking a quick shower and getting dressed in her normal, comfortable jeans and a T-shirt. After pulling a brush through her damp but quickly drying hair, she ventured downstairs to where her three rambunctious children were waiting.
"Morning, guys," she said brightly as she ventured into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee, sipping the dark brew as she ran a hand through Hannah's soft hair in greeting.
"Hi, Mom," was chorused from various points around the first floor of the house as she leant against the counter and continued to sip her coffee as she watched her older two children race through the house looking for things they needed at school that day, something that was normal for them both.
"Taylor, Cliff, do you think you'll be ready soon? You need to eat something; breakfast is the most important meal of the day," she reminded them.
"Yes, Mother," Taylor said mockingly as she dramatically rolled her blue eyes and tossed her bag down to a bench just inside the door, before she made her way to the kitchen and flung herself into one of the chairs at the dining room table. She picked up a box of cereal, making a face at the cartoon emblazoned on the front of it. Making a show of it to please her mother, Taylor poured a bowl of it and added milk, picking up the bowl of food and showing it to Sue before setting it back down and beginning to eat.
"Good," Sue answered her eldest daughter firmly, though her tone was just as mocking. She watched as her lone son continued to race around the downstairs of the house, looking for some unknown item that he needed for school. After a few more minutes, he made his way into the dining room and sat down at the table to eat his own breakfast of cereal.
"Hey, Mom, I'm going to need a protractor for math class, okay? We forgot to pick one up at the beginning of the school year," he explained.
Sue absently nodded as she set down her cup and began to clean up the table, Hannah helping her by carrying the cereal and milk into the kitchen to put them away. "You couldn't have told me over the weekend?" Not expecting an answer, she sighed and continued: "I'll pick one up for you sometime today, Cliff – would that be all right?"
"Yeah; I don't need it until tomorrow," he answered with a quick smile as he finished his cereal and abandoned the bowl on the table, a habit that had Sue sigh in exasperation and roll her eyes as she transferred it to the sink in the kitchen.
With the children's help, the table and counters were soon clear of the usual morning debris; the cereal was tucked where it belonged, the milk put safely away, and any dirty dishes were rinsed and residing in the sink to be cleaned later on. After one last check to make sure that the had everything that they needed for that day in school, Taylor, Cliff, and Hannah streamed out of the house and made their way to the car, Taylor unlocking it as she had the keys from Sue. By the time Sue had made sure the house was locked, they were already in the car and squabbling, as they tended to do every morning.
"Cliff, your next practice is on Tuesday, right? Do you have anything else planned for this week?" After he had agreed to the first and said that nothing else was planned beyond the second practice, which was normally held on Thursday, she turned to Taylor. "Do you have anything planned for this week?"
"Carla's having a party on Friday; can I go?"
"May you," was chirped from the position behind the driver's seat.
"Thank you, Hannah," Sue acknowledged with a smile and a look at her youngest daughter via the rearview mirror. "Will her parents be there?"
Taylor sighed and looked out her window at the passing scenery. "They won't be at the party," she said, "but they will be in the house. Is that enough?"
"Yes; as long as you do any homework you're assigned for the weekend before you go, you're allowed."
Taylor's scandalized "Mom!" echoed through the car, causing Sue to sigh and Cliff to wince and rub at his ears, much to Hannah's amusement. "Can we bargain here? What about a small portion of it? One assignment," she tried.
Sue considered the offer for a moment before replying. "Two, and you have to finish up the rest after your chores and before you go out on Saturday."
"But," Taylor tried to argue the point but was cut off by her mother.
"Those are the same rules that Cliff has when he has something to do on Friday night," Sue reminded her daughter.
"But he doesn't go to parties," Taylor pouted, "He goes to games."
There was laughter from the backseat before Cliff piped up: "That's not helping your case, sis. My games are an extra-curricular activity; your party is something you want to do."
Twisting in her seat to glare at her younger brother, Taylor made a face as they pulled up at her high school. "Oh, thank God!" She quickly climbed out of the light blue car and almost slammed the door shut, stopping to bend down and talk to her mother. "I'll do the two assignments," she promised. "Can I go?"
"May you," once again popped up from the backseat, the sound of it causing Taylor to roll her eyes.
Sue chuckled at it before nodding to her eldest daughter. "Yes, you may."
"Thanks, Mom." Taylor shut the door with a bang and hurried off to where a group of her friends were waiting on the steps to the school.
With a shake of her head, Sue put the car in gear and began the journey to Cliff's school, which was ten blocks away. "When's your next game?"
"We have one next week, against the Eagles. They're pretty good, but Coach Morales says that if we practice really hard we have a shot at beating them."
"Sounds good; is it marked on the calendar?"
"Yeah," Cliff answered, and they drove in near silence until they reached the middle school that Cliff went to. Once they arrived, he opened his door and then turned back. "Remember the protractor, okay? Mrs. Klein said that we had to have them by tomorrow or we wouldn't be able to do the assignment in class."
"I'll do my best," she promised, smiling when Cliff gave her thumbs up and a quick 'Bye, Mom,' before he, too, shut his door and hurried to where some of his friends were. "And then there were two," Sue sighed as she once again pulled into the morning traffic, causing Hannah to giggle again. "What about you, Miss Hannah? Do you have any plans for this week?"
Hannah sighed and shook her head. "Not even a birthday party," she admitted, the despondent tone causing her mother to smile slightly.
"How would you like to make a date? Just the two of us," she promised. "Both Taylor and Cliff usually hang out with friends on Saturday night. How does a movie sound?"
"Just the two of us?" Hannah nodded excitedly. "We can see Finding Nemo again!" she said, naming Disney and Pixar's latest animated offering.
"Wouldn't you rather go see a movie you haven't already seen twice?"
Hannah considered it before shaking her head. "I like Finding Nemo," she answered, "but we can see if there's something new."
"Thank you," she said gratefully, causing Hannah to laugh again. "Is there anything special going on at school today?"
"We get to go to the library," Hannah answered, naming a weekly trip that her class took. "We have to take out a book that we want to use on our book report. It's due next Monday."
"Do you have any ideas?"
"Maybe Charlotte's Web? It's on the list, but I wanted to see some of the others before I decided."
"You always have loved that book," Sue remarked with a soft smile. "You always picked that one when you wanted me to read to you."
Hannah smiled and unbuckled her seatbelt as soon as the car had stopped in front of her school. "I love you."
"I love you, too, Hannah. Have fun at school today."
"I will." With that, Hannah opened her door and slid out of the car, hurrying towards her classroom to drop off her book bag before she could meet up with some of her friends.
Sue quickly made her way home now that her youngest was safe and sound at school, no doubt eagerly waiting for the bell to ring for classes to begin. She parked her car in its' usual spot in the driveway and climbed out, entering her house and leaning against the door with a sigh. It was quiet, blissfully quiet. She stood still for a few moments, relishing the silence, before pushing away from the door and heading upstairs, retrieving dirty laundry that had to be cleaned. Once it was in the washing machine, she made her way to the kitchen, quickly cleaning and rinsing the bowls, glasses, and utensils that had been used that morning. That simple chore quickly completed, she pulled a rolling microwave cart out of the corner where it had been kept out of the way and placed it next to the computer.
She booted the computer up before walking over to the counter to get another cup of coffee and going back to the computer, sitting down as she took a sip of the dark, bitter brew. She automatically pulled up an accounting program and set the cup she held down to grab one of the manila folders that were neatly stacked on one side of the cart. Making a face, Sue began putting information into the computer, watching with satisfaction as line after line was filled.
With a slight sigh, she continued her work, reflection, as she rarely had time to do when the children were home, how different her life truly was from how she had expected it to be. Instead of a happily married woman, a wife as well as a mother, who was working at a job she loved, Sue was a single parent who worked at a job she hated: keeping accounts for small businesses and doing taxes for people come tax time. It was quite a jump for a woman who had always despised math and numbers, someone who had once dreamed of getting a degree and becoming an English teacher. The exact moment that had changed her life was easily pinpointed: three years into her relationship with David, when she had discovered she was pregnant for the first time.
Up until then, she and David had been fairly carefree and managing fairly well while living together. She was in school with a scholarship and David spent a lot of his time practicing his music with the band, both of them working to help cover their expenses. But at that moment, as soon as the window in the home pregnancy test had given a positive answer, she knew that something had to change. It was no longer David and Sue; it was David, Sue, and child. They had gotten married. It had been painful to give up her dreams of an English degree and instead focus on a crash course in accounting, something that would allow her to work from home, but Sue had done it, had done what was needed for her family. Even then, she had been happy, having dreams of a real family of her own ever since she was a little girl.
When Taylor, their child, had been a toddler, life in the Woodall household had finally fallen into a hectic balance, chaotic but stable, and Sue had once again begun to dream about her English degree. She had even gotten a course catalogue from the nearest community college, intending to take one or two night classes a semester; a slow-going way to achieve her degree but one that would allow her to continue working and taking care of her family. Instead, fate had once again intervened in the form of a second pregnancy and plans for her degree were once again shelved until a more appropriate time.
Life had continued, her pregnancy progressing, and Sue eventually gave birth to her first son, Clifford. If things had been busy with one child, they became even worse with the addition of a second. Sue, extremely grateful that she had found a job where she could work at home and not have the added expense of regular daycare and babysitters, had plunged back into the accounts. Being a full-time mother in addition to working full time had taken over her life, leaving David to his own devices more often than not.
By the time she had gotten pregnant for the third time, David had begun spending more time with the band, practicing, playing gigs, and waiting for his big break. After Hannah was born, things became even more crazed than before. Fights that had begun years ago, shortly before Cliff had been born, arguments about money and jobs, David's music and the large amount of time he spent away from his family, were renewed in earnest. Each time they discussed it, it was worse than the last, until it became impossible to hide their problems from the older children. It had continued for close to four months before culminating in a week of frigidly polite near-silence that had ultimately led David to packing his bags and leaving. The household stifled him, he'd said, and he wasn't ready for the responsibilities of being a parent. The band was going on tour and he was going with – and he wasn't planning on coming back.
That bombshell had left Sue in shock, running the house, taking care of their – her children, and working on autopilot as she wondered where she'd gone wrong and how she was going to do everything she had to do. It had taken close to a month for Sue to be to think clearly and come to an important realization: not a lot had changed. David had never been a hands-on parent, preferring to leave most of the work to Sue while he ate dinner with the family three or four times a week and took the children out for a few hours every weekend unless there was something more pressing, something he'd rather do. The majority of incoming money had come from the work that Sue did, and it was she, not David, who took care of the daily running of the house. She wasn't going to have to do anything she hadn't already done. She could do this. She was born to do this.
The loud buzzing the timer on the stove going off jarred Sue out of her thoughts and she looked around to find that she had automatically input all of the information she'd needed to, and her coffee was stone cold in the cup beside the monitor. She had no memory of doing it, or of transferring the wet clothing to the clothing line, but she obviously had. She got up to take them off the line, checking to see if she had put another load on; she hadn't, so she carried the dry clothes upstairs for folding and hanging. As she went through the mindless chore, she absently wondered why she had been so introspective earlier. Unable to draw any concrete conclusions, she decided that it was because of her birthday, which was in less than three weeks: growing older always made one think about the past.
She finished the chore of laundry and put them on the appropriate beds, waiting for the rightful owners to put the pieces away where they belonged. Going back downstairs, she made a sandwich for her lunch and sat at the dining room table to eat it before she reached for the pile of folders that held her finished work. Quickly gathering them, she left the house, being sure to lock the door behind her, and made her way to her light blue car, an older model that still ran wonderfully – at least on the days when it decided not to be temperamental. She went through her errands, delivering the papers with a smile and some nice conversation to men and women she considered friends, even flirting a bit with an office junior at a law firm, and easily finished her food shopping for the week, menus planned in her head.
In no time at all, she was back home and the groceries were put away and she barely had time to go through the mail, paying bills as she came to them, before she had to go pick up her children.
All of them were bursting at the seams, Hannah waiting anxiously to tell her about what they did in the third grade today while Cliff was rhapsodizing about a 'totally awesome' project that he was assigned in his history class and all of the things he planned to do with it, different places that he needed to go to get the supplies. Her male brainiac already had his plan half scribbled out on a piece of torn-out notebook paper that was crumpled from being folded up in his pocket. Taylor was more reticent, but admitted to having a good day, mentioning Steph's new hair-cut and the tentative plans made for Friday night, a bunch of friends coming over and everyone doing their homework together at the Busiek-Woodall house.
They arrived home and everyone filed out of the car and to the house before scattering: Taylor running upstairs to change into comfortable clothes, Hannah spreading her homework out on the coffee table, and Cliff dumping his bag at the base of the stairs on his way to the kitchen for the bottomless pit's normal after-school snack. He soon joined Hannah in the living room and began to read through one of the chapters her needed to for his English class, while loud music began to reverberate through the house; Taylor's 'study session music,' as the sixteen year old called it.
Sue, for her part, put another load of laundry on before sitting back down at the computer and beginning to work through the files that were given to her that day. She took breaks to help the kids with homework questions and putting the load of towels on the clothesline when it was finished washing. Gathering her things together on the rolling cart and sliding it out of the way in case one of the kids needed the computer for schoolwork, she went into the kitchen and began assembling dinner.
It was a noisy affair, as per usual, all of the kids talking and laughing, telling about their days, jokes they heard, and plans for the weekend. It wasn't until dinner was cleared away that things began to unravel.
"Did you pick up my protractor?"
Sue turned to her son, obviously thinking. "Cliff, I – I forgot. Sorry." She shrugged slightly, smiling a bit.
"You promised!"
"Cliff,' she turned to him, sighing, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to forget, but I did."
"I need it tomorrow!" He gestures, throwing his hands up in the air in a decidedly over-dramatic way. "I told you that! If we don't have them tomorrow, then we can't do the in-class assignment."
"Okay, okay. I'll go out and get you your protractor, all right?"
"Thank you!" He waved one hand and flopped down beside Hannah on the sofa. "It's not like I asked you to pick up comics; this is something I need for school."
Sue, in the process of pulling on a lightweight jacket, turned to Cliff and put one hand on her hip. "Did I or did I not say I was sorry and that I'll get it for you?"
He rolled his eyes and looked down slightly. "You did." After a moment of silence charged with waiting, he sighed. "Sorry."
"Thank you." Sue looked over at Hannah, who was sitting on the sofa looking through the book she had chosen for her book report. "Do you want to come, sweetie? It shouldn't be too long; you'd be able to take your bath after we got back."
Hannah looked up with a smile. "I'm reading," she said by way of explanation before looking back down at the book and offering a belated "thank you."
"I'll ask Jeannie to pop over while I'm gone," she said before starting out the door.
"Mom!" Taylor, who had been standing on the stairs, came down shaking her head. "You just said you wouldn't be gone long. We don't need a baby-sitter."
"She's right," Cliff piped up, for once agreeing with his older sister.
"It's not for you, it's for me," Sue explained, placing a hand on either side of Taylor's head and smiling. "It just makes me feel better to know she's here, okay?"
Taylor sighed and nodded, looking over to Cliff, who shook his head and muttered "if she's to make you feel better, you should take her with you" under his breath.
Sue just shook her head and left, running over to ask Jeannie to pop in for the duration of the errand, something that should be forty minutes, max. Jeannie had no problem with it and, as Sue went to her car, Jeannie let herself into the house with the ease of someone who knew her way around.
Sue decided to by-pass the near-by store, knowing that one of the bigger one-stop-shopping stores that had cropped up all over the country, knowing that it would be more likely to have what she needed even with other students needing the same things. It was a bit farther away from the house, but not enough to make a real difference. Traffic was light and she arrived there in short order, quickly walking though the aisles to the school and office supplies and searched for the protractors. There were a few choices of clear colored plastic and she chose a bright yellow for Cliff and made her way to the cash registers to pay for it, absently adding a few candy bars as a treat for not only herself but the kids, to her purchase.
Getting in the car and beginning to drive home, she fiddled with the radio, changing the station from Taylor's pop to an oldie station that always made her think of her parents. She continued home, automatically checking the lights before she entered the intersections, before a sixth sense kicked in.
Sue glanced to one side as she entered the intersection and gasped in horror at the sight of headlights bearing down on her. She automatically pressed down hard on the gas pedal, knowing that it was too late for her to even attempt stopping but hoping that she would be able to make it most of the way across the lanes of traffic before she was hit. Instinctively, she knew that she wouldn't make it and closed her eyes, thinking of her children as she braced for the impact she knew was coming…
TBC in Stage 1: Denial
Thanks to Nat, who beta'd this for me.