ASOUE: One Last Dance

Disclaimer: I do not own A Series of Unfortunate Events, or any of the characters included with it. It would be a dream come true, but alas… I live in reality. Sigh…

I do not own the song Happy by Ayeisha Woods either.

As his mother deposited him in the hole in the floor she felt a tear slip down her cheek.

"Don't move, honey. Don't move. Not till they're gone…" Not till we're gone. She tried to smile. Tried to make it feel okay, but it wasn't okay. She was leaving her son in a hole in the floor that led to the house of a herpetologist that he had never met before. Monty wasn't a friend of the family. He was a friend of the parents. Not the family… He didn't know Quigley. He knew of Quigley. He knew he existed. But he didn't know him. Monty was a complete and total stranger. Maria Quagmire was leaving her son in the care of a perfect stranger.

She never thought it would come to this.

She never thought that her life would turn out like this.

V.F.D. was supposed to save people… not kill them. Apparently she hadn't looked out for the most dangerous element of them all… the element of surprise.

She looked into her son's eyes and was about to close the hatch when it happened… the radio turned on…

No record deal, no dream fulfilled, no three minute video
No catchy jingle, no big hit single playing on the radio

Can make me happy
Can make me feel the way you do
Can make me happy
I wanna make you happy too

Maria had never heard this song before but it had a good beat to it. It made her want to dance. Dance? She was thinking of dancing at a time like this. She began to cry, as she thought of the truth of the song… how it applied to her life. Nothing made her as happy as her family did. She should never have joined V.F.D. She should have stayed as far away from that organization as possible. But it was like a gang… once you joined… you couldn't get out. She should have been thinking of her family and not herself. I want to make you happy too…that was what the song had said. And she did want to make them happy. There was only one way she could do that…

Next she did the craziest thing.

"Do you want to dance?" she whispered in her son's ear.

"Dance?" he looked up at her as if she had suddenly lost her mind.

"Come on… the house is going to burn down and there's nothing we can do about it. We might as well have one last dance."

"Not last, Mom. Soon our family will be together again… and, and we'll be able to dance again. The whole family… we can have a big party. Just because our house is coming down doesn't mean that our family is going to fall apart. I promise. We'll have a family dance. It'll be lots of fun. I promise…" he told her. But he was wrong and she knew it. So she pulled him out of the hole. And they danced as the music played.

No flashy cars, no movie stars, no man, woman, boy or girl
No fancy things, no diamond rings, nothing in the whole wide world

Can make me happy
Can make me feel the way you do
You make me happy
I want to make you happy too
You make me happy
You make me feel the way I do
You make me happy
I wish the whole world knew you too

The flames whirled around them and still they continued to dance, as tears streamed down both of their faces. Quigley still didn't believe that it was over. It couldn't be. It wasn't supposed to end like this. We're a normal family. We have nothing to hide. Why is this happening to us? He didn't realize the irony of his thoughts. They weren't normal. They had plenty to hide. He just didn't know it yet.

So they danced as their house fell down around them, until finally his mother knew it was time to let him go.

"I love you." She told him, and he kissed her on the cheek.

"I love you too, Mom. Won't you come down in here with me? We can be safe together…" he whispered. The air was filled with smoke and it was hard for him to see her now.

"I can't come down there Quigley. The only way I can keep you safe is to stay up here." The only way I can keep you safe is to die… that's how I will end all this.

"Please, Mom. Don't be stubborn this time. Don't leave me. I need you." He croaked as his throat filled with smoke.

"It's better this way." She told him. And she shut the lid with a loud thump. But he didn't hear it. All was silent.

She screamed.

Silence…

And he knew then that she was gone.