I don't own TNBC. I do own this fanfic, though.
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Chapter 10
A Christmas Epilogue
December 25, 2:56 a.m. Somewhere in The Towers' hospital wing…
Aubrey Peterson had been in a coma for almost two months. Or, at least, that's what the staff at The Towers and the rest of the world thought, courtesy of one Mr. Nicholas Claus. So when she woke up very early Christmas morning, everyone was amazed. Especially Leon Jacobs.
At noon, he went to visit his patient. "Hello Aubrey."
Aubrey looked over at him. She was sitting up in her bed, eating her lunch of macaroni and cheese. "Hello Dr. Jacobs."
He smiled. "I'm glad to see that you remember me."
She swallowed her mouthful of noodles. "Why wouldn't I?"
Leon sat down in a chair next to her bed. "You took quite a fall, Aubrey. Tripped on one of Lindsey's books and slammed your head against three-inch steel bars. You don't remember?" She shook her head. "What about Halloween Town?"
Aubrey remembered. Santa had told her he would implant false memories into everyone's mind. She asked one thing.
Don't tamper with Emily.
He'd agreed. Emily was smart. She'd figure something out.
She remembered sneaking out. She remembered living in Halloween Town for the past two months. She remembered Jack taking her to Christmas Town so Santa could take her back.
Aubrey remembered everything. But she couldn't go back to Halloween Town. Not for a very long time anyway. It was lost to her. So, looking Leon straight in the eye, she replied to him, "What's Halloween Town?"
xXx
It took five days to get all the paperwork done that would allow me to go home. Leon had declared me completely sane, saying that the bump on the head had gotten rid of my delusional fantasies. I played the part of the confused girl, and said I didn't remember anything. You get really good at lying after a couple weeks of hanging around with Lock, Shock, and Barrel.
So, as I waited for Emily to come pick me up and take me home, I reached into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the amulet. I'd hid it under my robe when I'd woken up. I doubt Santa had made up an excuse for it, and I didn't need to manage another lie. I hooked it around my neck just as Emily's Mercedes pulled up.
She leaned over and opened the door for me after I'd put my stuff in the trunk. "Looks like we've got some catching up to do." I said.
"And six hours to do it in." Emily grinned back. "We're taking the long way. I'll take you to lunch." I couldn't help but grin. I was so craving some greasy fast food.
As she drove through the gates, she told me that mom and Ryan had suddenly started babbling about how you'd fallen into a coma. I thought I was going crazy, because we'd known since your birthday that you'd disappeared from The Towers."
"It was Santa." I told her.
She shrugged. "Wouldn't doubt it. So… where did you go?"
I smiled, almost dreamily. "Halloween Town. I can't ever get back, though. The door's gone."
"You'd better start from the beginning." Emily told me.
And so I did, starting from the very first time I'd gone, to when mom stuck me in The Towers, to getting rid of Oogie Boogie, to getting enrolled in High School there, finishing with coming back here.
"You got to ride in Santa's sleigh? Cool." Emily admonished.
I was quiet for a minute. "Em, why'd you suddenly start believing me?"
I saw my sister's grip on the steering wheel tighten, making her knuckles go white. "I was looking through some of our old medical records, you know, from back when dad died." She gulped. "Mom had hired a… a hypnotist of sorts. For two treatments."
It took me a second to absorb the information. "Me and you. Oh my god. What for?"
Emily pulled into a parking lot of a burger place. "I'll tell you over lunch."
When we had our food and were back in the car, she continued her story. "I looked this guy up and set up an appointment with him. When I told him I wanted him to undo whatever he did, and he did it…" She leaned her head against the steering wheel. "We were in the car when dad crashed, Aubrey."
My fry dropped into my lap. Oh. My. God. I remembered now.
xXx
We were just coming home from the special Halloween circus. It was my third birthday. Emily was eight. Mom and Ryan had stayed home, so it was just us three in the truck. We were listening to a kiddie songs tape. Dad was laughing as I tried to remember the words to 'The man on the flying trapeze.'
Then…then a huge shadow popped up in front of the car. Dad swerved out of surprise, slamming into the guardrail. The shadow laughed, a laugh that chilled me to the bone. A laugh I knew far too well now.
The truck was teetering on the edge of the cliff. Emily and I were both crying and had cuts all over our bodies from the shattered window in front.
Dad reached back and unbuckled us both, then shoved open the back window that led into the truck bed. "Climb out, both of you." He had ordered.
We did so, but the sudden shift of weight made the truck topple over the edge. We sat in the back, screaming as the truck flew down the side of the cliff, landing with a crunch and throwing us out of the back.
When I woke up, the truck was burning, with dad trapped inside. Almost all of his skin and muscle was burned off his face, showing the bone underneath. I started screaming again.
xXx
"Oogie killed dad." I whispered. "I knew I wasn't crazy."
"He was trying to kill all of us, Aubrey." Emily told me. "All three of us. If dad had waited even one more second, we would've still been inside the truck when it fell." She pulled me into a hug. "We could both go to Halloween Town at first. We both heard the voices. We both saw the monsters in the closet, and under the bed.
"Mom didn't hire a hypnotist until a year later, your next birthday. I took to it a lot better than you. The guy made you forget the accident, but you still saw the monsters. Now you just didn't know why. Mom couldn't handle it. So after that incident on your eighth birthday, she had you committed."
"Oogie… that's what he meant. We weren't supposed to die that day with dad. I was." I sobbed into her sweater. "The reason I couldn't forget was because I had the key to the door. I couldn't forget because I helped to connect us with Halloween Town."
Emily hugged me tighter. "It's not your fault Aubrey. No one blames you. Everything's okay now, all right? Let's go home."
She started up the car again and started to pull out as I took a bite of my now lukewarm burger. "So… what's up with you and this Lock dude?"
"Emily!"
xXx
"Lock, come on!" Shock called up the stairs. "You're gonna make us late!"
"So?" Was all she got as a response. She turned to Barrel.
"Will you go talk to him?"
Jack walked up behind them. "I'll talk to him. You two get going."
"Okay. See ya' Jack. Come on Barrel!"
"Bye Jack! Bye Sally!" Barrel called, running after Shock. "Hey, wait for meeee!"
Sally walked out of the kitchen. "Give Lock a few days, Jack. He's still probably confused himself."
Jack nodded. "I know." He sat down in his high backed chair. "It's so quiet without Aubrey helping them to cause trouble. They haven't tried to pull anything in almost a week."
Sally hugged him. "We all miss her, Jack."
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Ja ne!
SC