Take a Chance on Me - Chapter 10

***Author's notes - Sorry about the huge delay. I just finished working at camp last week and then I packed up all of my belongings and moved to another state to start Grad school. Talk about your crazy summer. I hope to work on this a bit more regularly from now until the end, but I don't want to promise anything.

***

Sara O'Neill stared down at her niece, shock etching her face into a mask of emotion ranging from disbelief to fear to sadness. Looking up at her, Rayne saw the emotions flitting on Sara's face, with a mixture of hope and terror welling inside of her. Seeing the last emotion, Rayne dropped her head and slowly began to turn away. As she did though, Sara reached out and touched her face, hoping that the girl in front of her was flesh and blood, and not an apparition. Stepping down from the stoop to stand level with her, Sara pulled Rayne into a tearful embrace. Rayne choked back a sob and hugged back. The two women stood on the porch, hugging and crying, relieved that the other was there.

Sara was the first to pull from the embrace. She smiled at her niece. Taking her hand she led her into the house and stood in the entryway at the bottom of the stairs. "You'd like to see his room."

Rayne smiled sadly and nodded her head. Sara returned her smile and led the way upstairs to Charlie's bedroom.

Sara entered first and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for Rayne to take everything in. Rayne stood in the doorway looking around the room. "It's still the same," Rayne said.

Sara was a bit surprised - Rayne had never been to the house before. She looked at the younger O'Neill in askance. Rayne caught the look and smiled.

"Do you remember the camera that you got Charlie for his tenth birthday?" Rayne asked.

Sara nodded.

"He sent me the first four rolls. They were all taken in this room. I have a really great close-up of the doorknob."

Sara laughed. "I wondered what happened to all of those pictures. He went through film like crazy, but he never let me see any of the pictures."

Rayne entered the room smiling with her aunt. Sara expected her to look at his photos and his toys, perhaps touch his things lovingly as others had done, remembering and saying good-bye. She didn't do any of those things though. What Rayne did do, however, surprised her.

Pulling out the desk chair, she carried it over to the closet, opened the door, and set it inside. Sara looked on, puzzled, as Rayne stood on the chair and began fiddling with the closet ceiling.

Sara came over to see what was going on. "Rayne, what on Earth are you doing?"

Rayne looked down at her from the chair. "I'd like my letters back," she stated before going back to the ceiling. "There's an attic entrance to the rear gable; it's separated from the main attic. Charlie liked to keep things there." She lifted a door in the ceiling and lowered a rope ladder.

Sara gasped, tears welling in her eyes. "I had no idea it was there. I thought. I thought that I had everything of his."

Rayne bent to look Sara in the eye. "Aunt Sara, I know that you want to see this place and that you have a right to see everything that your son was, but. Charlie was a teenager - a young teenager, but one none the less. He was starting to rebel. There *were* reasons that you didn't know that this place was here."

Sara looked at her angrily and pushed Rayne's hand from her shoulder. "I think I know who my son was. How dare you assume that you know him better than I did. I'm his mother!"

Rayne set her jaw and spoke quietly. "I'm not saying that you didn't know him. I'm just telling you that when Charlie wrote to me, he presented a different side of himself."

"I knew everything about him!" Sara seethed. "Let me see what is up there. I have a right to see it first."

Rayne sighed, not wanting to hurt Sara, but not wanting her to be unprepared. "What was his girlfriend's name?"

Sara looked at her, stunned. "He. he didn't have a girlfriend. He was too young. He was just a child." Sara visibly wilted.

Rayne held her aunt by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "Her name was Ashley. She was in his math and science classes. She was on the softball team - they like to play catch in the park." Rayne brushed Sara's hair behind her ear. "She had blond hair and blue eyes. It seems Charlie and his dad had similar taste in women."

Sara looked mournfully at Rayne. "I want to see it."

"I know you do. I just wanted you to be ready. Charlie was not a little boy. He grew up more than I think you realized." Rayne took the first step up the ladder and looked down at Sara. "Follow me up."

Sara looked at the hole in the ceiling, watching as Rayne's feet pulled away from the opening. A light flickered on above her and Rayne's face appeared, looking down at her. Sara stepped onto the chair and began to carefully climb the ladder.

Rayne helped her up and she stood. The room was dusty and light filtered in from a small dirty window on one side of the room. With the sloping roof, Sara could only stand upright in the center of the room and she and Rayne stood close to each other to accommodate their height. Under the window sat a beanbag chair that she had used in college, and an overturned box with a small lamp shaped like an elephant that Charlie had made at Boy Scout camp.

The posters on the walls were what surprised Sara the most. There was one of Alicia Silverstone and one of Gwen Stefani, as well as various pictures of young women from different magazines. But perhaps the one that surprised her the most was a poster of an aircraft carrier. Sara stared at it for a moment, a puzzled look on her face.

Rayne followed her gaze and grinned. "He wanted to join the Navy."

Sara looked at her shocked. "The Navy? He always said that he wanted to be a pilot, like his dad."

"Charlie was afraid of heights and. he didn't want to disappoint Jack. When I told him that John joined the Navy, he thought that was pretty neat idea."

"Oh." Sara paused, staring around distractedly. "How is your brother?"

Rayne tore her gaze away and looked out the window. "He's another fence to be mended." She knelt down and opened the lid of a trunk. "Ah, here's what I was looking for." She pawed through the papers. "It looks like he kept all of mine too."

"All of what?" Sara bent down to look in the trunk, noting the change in subject, but too interested in what Rayne had found to ask about it. "Why there must be hundreds of letters here!"

Rayne looked up at her. "A letter for a letter. Charlie sent me hundreds too." Again Sara was surprised. "I knew that he sent you mail, but I had no idea that he sent you this much."

"Well, Charlie's collection here isn't quite as organized as mine is, so it looks like more that there is, but he sent me about two letters a week, starting with that first Christmas card." Rayne looked up at her aunt. "Thank you for that by the way; for making him write that card."

Sara smiled at her. "It was nothing really. I just figured that you two cousins should stay in touch. I just had him write it instead of doing it myself again."

Rayne looked at Sara sadly. "Aunt Sara, I never saw any of the cards from you." She swallowed. "Mother must have thrown them away. I, we, had extra help that year - the card must have slipped through."

Sara looked aghast. "Why would your mother throw away the cards?"

Rayne's lips pulled tight and her expression hardened. "That's how she is. I never got mail when I was at home - only when I was at school did any of Charlie's letters get to me. But that isn't the point. Aunt Sara, the letters that Charlie sent to me and the notes and cards that you sent were the most important things in my life after my father died. I. I don't know what would have happened if I didn't know that someone. that someone cared about me."

Sara pulled Rayne into a tight embrace, tears filling her eyes. "We did care about you. I still do."

Rayne wiped the tears from her eyes. "I know. Jack does too." She bit her lip. "I started spending time with him you know."

Sara stiffened. "How is he?"

"He's okay. We got into a pretty spectacular argument this morning. I. I think he lost someone he cares about though - recently. But, he'll be okay. He has friends to help him out."

"He seemed okay the last time I saw him too." She paused, eager to turn the subject back to Charlie. "You saved Charlie's letters?"

Rayne answered hesitantly, afraid of what Sara was going to ask. "I did."

"Could I. maybe."

"No."

"No?" Sara was startled by Rayne's decision. "They're my son's letters, his words, his life. Why won't you let me see them? I have nothing since the accident."

Rayne looked up at the last word, startled, but looked down again quickly, pulling letters out of the trunk quickly. She grabbed an empty box that was sitting nearby and began filling it.

Sara grabbed her hands roughly, forcing her to stop what she was doing. "You can't have those letters until I get Charlie's." Sara spoke softly, her voice full of suppressed rage.

Rayne couldn't look at her. Hands shaking, she scooped up the box and dumped the contents back into the trunk and, not bothering to stand up, she crawled to the ladder. "I have to go." She climbed down two rungs and jumped the rest of the way down.

"Wait, Rayne!" Sara called after her scrambling to stand up and follow.

Rayne didn't wait and by the time Sara had reached the top of the stairs, Rayne had fled through the front door.