"YOU'RE GOING TO COLLEGE!" Allison shrieked through the upstairs of their house. Remy had just come home from work—trying to forget and move on until it came time for the trial. It had been a month since Abbey's graduation, and for the most part, things were…going. She set her keys, purse and takeout bag on the counter and looked at the ceiling like she had x-ray vision or something.
"WHY?" Abbey yelled back at her mother.
"WHY?..REALLY? WHY? WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOUNG LADY? YOU CAN'T GET A DECENT JOB ANYMORE WITHOUT A DEGREE!" Allison was trying to be rational.
"THAT DOESN'T MEAN I CAN'T TAKE A YEAR OFF!" Abbey had gotten off her bed and started towards her mother.
"YES IT DOES! A YEAR WILL TURN INTO TWO WILL TURN INTO FOUR! I CAN'T HAVE YOU AROUND HERE FOREVER, YOU GOT TO LEAVE SOMETIME!" Allison stopped her daughter at arms length.
"WHY?" Abbey's eyes bugged and she looked at her mother like she was ridiculous.
Remy started walking the stairs to try and break up or settle whatever had started.
"EVERYONE DOES!" Allison made a sweeping motion with her hand then let it come to her face as she wiped it like she was exhausted.
Abbey stared her mother down and timidly walked toward her, "What do you mean 'everyone does'?"
"I mean…" She caught herself before she actually said anything.
"You're going to school and that's final." Remy said from the doorway.
"But Remy!" Abbey whined.
"Oh I'm sorry…I must've opened the door to the past." She stepped backwards into the hall to look at the doorway, "Huh…so I did. It says right there 'Four year old in room. Beware of annoyance and whining.'" She said as she stepped back into the room staring her non-biological daughter down, raising a brow for intimidation.
Abbey opened her mouth then closed it. Then as her mother walked tensely toward Remy to greet her good evening, she against her better judgment, went in for suicide. "I just don't see why I have to go right now! Why can't I just wait until Spring? Or even next Summer!" Allison's jaw clenched; her nostrils flared and her arms folded. Oh can someone say Trouble right here in River City? I am going to get it! Abbey thought to herself as her own eyes bugged.
Allison turned to Remy, "Deal with this…please." She asked quietly before walking away.
Remy turned to Abbey, "Why do you think you should stay?"
"Because…" She looked down at the floor then back up to her mom. "Because you and Momma might need help. I don't know." She shrugged as she sat in her desk chair.
Remy closed her eyes as she leaned against the desk itself. "You want to take a year off from school to help out when the trial comes around?"
"And after if it's not working…obviously…" Abbey wouldn't look at her.
"Abbey baby….is that really what you want to do? Do you really want to be stuck here taking care of me, or do you want to learn and find out what you love and what you want to do with your life? If it was me…and it was me…I'd want to get out and breathe." Abbey didn't respond, "Do me a favor, do what you want to do, not what you think is expected of you. I mean, can you really picture yourself living here for the next decade or so? I can't. I see you out and among amazing people doing God knows what and becoming freaking successful…you can't do that if you don't start. And the starting place is college."
"I want to help you too though…I really do." She looked at Remy with tears in her eyes.
"Okay…how about this. You live here and commute to school. It's only a fifteen minute drive—if that. But only for this year. You will still be taking 15-16 hours a semester and you will still do what we expect of you…meaning your chores."
"Curfew?" Abbey sat up straight.
"Ask your mother." Remy said warily as she stood up.
After a long family discussion, it was decided that Abbey would in fact stay home for her freshman year of college. And she would have to keep up with her chores on top of college homework, but she did get to not have to worry about a curfew…she just needs to tell her moms when she gets home at night.
Abbey had started her summer classes. They were just Gen-Ed because she didn't have a clue of what she wanted to do in life, but she was enjoying them nonetheless. Her Comp I teacher was her favorite, but she did really like her logic and critical thinking class. Her other classes consisted of a math, health and history class. They felt rather mundane and she slept through her math class and still had managed to get an A on all her quizzes.
And five months from "the incident" Remy and Allison were doing pretty well. Her hand would shake periodically, but she was—well all of them were adamant on not letting it affect them. They were looking at the upcoming trial as their saving grace.
The two older women were never going to admit that having their child stay with them during her first year in college made them both extraordinarily happy. She really did help out, and for that they were grateful.
Remy was in the lab one afternoon waiting for a test to finish, having already run the gels, when she felt like she was shivering. She looked down to survey her body and see why she could possibly be shivering and found that the trembling had moved north. Her arm was shaking now along with her hand. She bit her bottom lip and looked at nothing on the wall.
The repetitive beeping of the results being printed shook her out of her stupor; looking at them all she saw were her results from a few years before. She headed to the main office and left the results on the table before grabbing her purse and leaving the hospital. For the second, maybe even the third time in her life she became mechanical. If asked, she wouldn't remember sending the text to Allison telling her that she was taking the bus home; she wouldn't remember the bus ride, or even the four block walk to their neighborhood. Nor would she remember sitting on their porch step for almost an hour before going inside and changing into sweats and curling on her bed.
She would remember the shaking; she had been watching it slowly intensify then abate. She had her and Allison's ipod on in the background playing softly as she lay there staring. She let the tears fall, for she thought she still had a while before Abbey or Allison would come home.
It was during the twelfth—Remy wouldn't be able to tell when she put the ipod on repeat either—time that she was listening to Joe Nichol's "I'll Wait for You" that Allison came through their doorway. She was about to tell her lover how happy she was that they both got off early and maybe tonight they'd be able to get off a few more times when she saw the bed. She saw the huddled mass under their sheets…and she saw Remy's arm. She tried to swallow the lump that formed in her throat, but it was damn near impossible.
Remy took her eyes off her arm—the movement catching her lover's attention—and looked over to Allison. Their eyes connected as the last verse started to fill the room again; they didn't break even when the song ended.
He didn't stop all day to eat a bite, and he finally got there around midnight. The doctor said "She's in a better place. She said to give you this note, just incase." And it said 'I'll wait for you at heaven's gate. Oh, I don't care how long it takes. I'll tell Saint Pete I can't come in without my love and my best friend, oh, this ain't nothin' new. Sweetheart I'll wait for you. Mmm, yes I love you too…Sweetheart, I'll wait for you.'
Cameron came around the bed and curled behind her, for all intents and purposes, wife and held her. "You won't need to wait for me because you're not going anywhere." She said as the tears fell despite her will for them not to.
Remy turned in her lover's arms, "Sweetheart…" She choked out, "Baby, we have to be rational, we can't be completely faithful. If we put all our hope into the trial and it doesn't work…" She looked at the ceiling, really anywhere but Allison, "We have to be rational. We have to start planning for a future we don't want. It's the inevitable."
"No. You don't know that." She stared her down.
"Yes! I do…you do too. You have to accept it, Babe. It's going to happen." Cameron shook her head repeatedly as the tears became more prominent. Remy scooted up the bed and decided it was her turn to hold her lover, "I want you to do something for me after I die, okay?"
"NO!" Allison moved to get up, not able to handle the conversation.
Remy pulled her closer until she stopped struggling. "Listen to me..please Baby." She took in a shaky breath, "I want you to be happy again. I want you to find someone and live a long and happy life with them, okay? When it's your time, I'll be sitting on a bench somewhere… I'll have a flower for you. And when we finally look into each other's eyes again, it'll be like no time has passed. We'll just get to be." By the end of her speech her tears were fresh also, and they were clinging to each other.
Yes, Allison had cried privately about it before, but it was in this moment that she completely broke.
AN: I know, I know, stop with the sad and the tears. I don't usually like sad stories, but it was a request and I wanted to do the requestor justice…how am I doing imaginex3? I promise after this it'll start to look a little happier…I'm almost positive that this was the saddest part of the story…
I'll be wrapping this up in about a week and starting in with this random and completely AU story that popped into one of my dreams and I decided to expand…besides the point. I don't just want to know what imaginex3 thought of it, I want to know what you think too, so leave a review please! It's the only way I know for certain!