Author's Note: Update, update, update! YAY!!! Okay, thankies for all of the positive reviews guys. And please, e-mail me for ideas and suggestions. I urge you to do this!
Dedication: To all the reviewers! You guys don't know how much I appreciate the reviews!
P.S.: I'm in pre-production of two fics, one of them being a Day After Tomorrow fanfic, which includes Sam and Laura's child O.O Whoa…
No Words Here
Chapter Two: I Fall To Pieces
"I guess some people are just born with tragedy in their blood." –Gretchen, 'Donnie Darko'
Laura's peaceful sleep was disrupted by the morning's light, and a strange urge of human nature that forced her to awaken. She groped blindly for her digital clock, picking it up and looking at it, almost a glare. Seven o'clock. The red numbers glowed sadistically, and Laura sighed. Only two hours of sleep again. How she managed to remain in the conscious world was a complete mystery, but she dragged herself off of her cot and onto the showering area, inside one of the many free showers, where the purposely cold water had completely woken her.
She dressed quickly at met her mother at a pavilion, where she ate a cold breakfast of Lucky Charms and an apple. Laura twirled her spoon in the mixture of milk, cereal bits, and marshmallow shapes, and then glanced up to succumb her mother's weary expression.
"What's today?" Laura questioned. She had lost track of the days; they all seemed to bleed together.
"Tuesday." Tuesday. It had been a week exactly, but it seemed like a lifetime since she had arrived.
The teenager felt a broad spectrum of human emotion right then; anger, fear… she evidently wanted to say something, but it felt horribly inappropriate to ask. She wanted to know, engage in a conversation, not the mandatory social gesture she was doing right now.
"How did it happen?" Laura asked suddenly, as if she was talking to a teacher and accidentally said a swear or something along those lines. Michelle stared at her daughter with eyes heavy with shame. "O-oh… I'm sorry…"
"Don't be," she interrupted softly. "You—you do deserve to know," Michelle began, then released a heavy sigh.
"We were with the last band of people evacuating out of Washington D.C. But there was a problem with the vehicle we were using. We hadn't used antifreeze in the fuel, and it was starting to freeze as we set out for Mexico. By the time we had reached southern Virginia, it had frozen solid. The driver had lost control, and crashed into a tree. He died instantly, but Tessa, a girl named Marnee and her father Aubrey, and I survived the crash. But, nevertheless, we were stuck in there, and it seemed no one would rescue us. We were trapped in there for three days, with no food or water or heat. It was awful…" Michelle continued, with a more reluctant tone, "… Marnee… she died first, in her father's arms… Aubrey didn't have the will to live after that… I—I tried to keep her warm… I held Tessa, covered her up… but…" the tears gleamed in her eyes, and Laura squeezed her hand supportively.
"It'll be alright, mom, I promise. It'll get better." Laura vowed.
The day passed slowly, until a mysterious man arrived at her family's housing tent. He was around her mother's age, tall with a trace of a tan on his skin. He had brown hair and eyes, intriguing for such neutral colors. She didn't recognize him at first, until he gave her a viciously tight hug. She immediately pulled away from him.
"Dad." She sneered darkly."That's my name." He said with a smile, oblivious to the fact that looked like she was going to explode.
Laura didn't understand why she was so angry with him, though. Wasn't this what she'd dreamed about? That Daddy would come back? "Do you think you can come back to Mom and me and get instantly loved?" Scorn laced her voice as she snapped at him accusingly. "Think again."
"But I'm your father…" he replied softly, as if that was going to explain everything.
"No you're not!" Laura snarled. "Just because half of my chromosomes are yours does not make you a father. I don't have a father. I would never give you the credit or acknowledge you as my father. You don't deserve it. You left her. You left me. You left Tessa. And no words can forgive you for all the heartbreak you've caused, 'cause if you think your homecoming to grieve for Tessa is going to forgive it, you're dead wrong." She then stormed out of the tent, her biological father not daring to stop her.
Fists clenched as an aftereffect from her little 'outburst', Laura went to the only place were she could talk to someone about this. She pulled up the sheet like door to the large tent where the Halls' were living. "Sam!" she called to receive his full attention.
"Laura," he rose from his cot, where he'd been reading a book, but saw the gaze in her eyes that could throw knives. "What's wrong?"
At that moment, all she wanted to do was completely spill her heart out, telling him everything. But she didn't, improvising with, "My Dad." Sam had a clear look of confusion on this facial features. "He—he's back. He left me and Tessa and Mom when I was seven… but he's back…" she added for clarity, her voice a mere choke, and barely understandable.
Sam interlocked his fingers with hers, "Come with me."
He had led her to a standard issue truck his father had earned from the government, and drove it for ten or fifteen miles, his grip on the steering wheel tightened so hard, his knuckles turned as pallid as snow.
"Where are we going?" she asked for the thousandth time.
"You'll see," Sam answered, his grip loosening drastically. "Close your eyes." She obeyed, not seeing any other reason not to.
After a while, he told her to open her eyes again. The vehicle finally pulled up to a rather secluded area, to what appeared to be the edge of a cliff. They leaped out of the truck simultaneously, and Laura gasped.
They were facing a drop-off to a cove-shaped area, filled with unrealistically blue water. It was so perfectly blue; it looked like it had been retouched for a tourist brochure. Remnants of buildings and streetlamps jutted from the water, and something finally dawned on Laura.
"A tidal wave hit here, too. But this one was a hell of a lot bigger. It went inland from the ocean to this point here, which needless to say, is a pretty long way." Sam informed her.
"It's beautiful, though. Sad, but beautiful…"
"Kind of like you." He pointed out, smiling slyly.
She gave him a playful punch and laughed happily. And for the first time since her father arrived, she felt wonderful.
Next Chapter: The shit hits the fan O.O