A nice cheery one-shot to brighten your day! The italics are memories obviously and the bold is song lyrics. It is set after Ronnie looses her baby at Christmas, but pretend she told Roxie that night about the rape, and also it is kind of about her love/hate relationship with Archie. Please enjoy and review.
Warning: If you don't wanna read about child abuse and character death, then avoid this! Also it's OOC because I know Archie is mean, but I'm not sure if he's /that/ mean.
Disclaimer: I don't own Eastenders. And the song is not my own, but My Skin by Natalie Merchant.
Take a look at my body, look at my hands,
There's so much here that I don't understand.
Each day Ronnie wakes up and fights a loosing battle; each day she struggles to open up and let anyone see past the jagged edges at the empty nothingness inside. She has been hollowed out, all her happy feelings carved away until nothing is left but hatred, bitterness and misery.
The misery is too much to stand now.
Everything she truly cares about is lost to her.
She thinks of the unborn baby, who will never see its mother's face or anything at all.
She thinks of Danielle, another lost child and the daughter who died in her arms.
She thinks of Roxie, her little sister who thinks she is so twisted that she would lie about being raped.
She thinks of Jack, the man she once loved so much that it hurts, but she can't even feel love anymore; all she understands is that she has lost yet another child, feeling only the barren wasteland inside her stomach.
Your face saving promises,
Whispered like prayers,
But I don't need them.
Finally, she thinks of her father, the one man who is supposed to offer her his unconditional love and protection, the one man who is supposed to be willing to die for her. Instead he has slowly killed her. Killed her and infected her with poison that has corroded her and turned her blood to ice since she was fourteen years old.
Who would want her now?
I've been treated so wrong,
I've been treated so wrong,
As if I'm becoming untouchable
He has destroyed her, made her hate herself and be hated by everyone around her. All she has left is Jack, but even he won't want her now. How could he?
Archie has made her unfeeling and unseeing.
She is untouchable.
She can't stand the feel of Jack's skin against hers, his lips against her cheek. Because it isn't his skin; isn't his lips. It's her Dad she imagines, forcing himself on her on again. He has stolen her last chance at happiness and taken complete control over her as he has always wanted to do.
Well contempt loves the silence,
It thrives in the dark,
Fine winding tendrils that strangle the heart
Ever since she was a little girl she has lived to please the father that always regarded her with contempt. He has loved Roxie, has doted on her with something close to obsession, but never her. She has never been good enough to please, never anything more than the girl who tries her best to please but only succeeds in angering; unnoticed and without love. Even when she has hated him he has held that perverse power over her.
On the surface, she is a confident thirty four year old woman even if she has nothing to show for it, but on the inside she is still just a little girl crying out for the father she has never had and clinging onto broken promises.
They say that promises sweeten the blow,
But I don't need them
No I don't need them
She will please him now; she will finish the job he has been doing his entire life. Ronnie hates that everything he has done has led to this moment, but she loves the idea that for once she is doing something that will make him love her. Or hate her even more.
Trembling, she grabs the bottle of pills from the table and slides to the floor in a heap, adopting the same pose she had twenty-four years ago when her Dad had stolen her childhood innocence.
I've been treated so wrong,
I've been treated so long,
As it I'm becoming untouchable.
She is ten again, curled in a tight ball in her bedroom.
Defeated.
Her hair hangs in front of her face, but it doesn't matter. Her Father has never needed to see her face to control her. The girl keeps her eyes fixed determinedly on the floor, tears trailing down her face and leaving a scorching trail in their wake. A whimper seizes hold of her lips and they wobble frantically as an animal cry tears its way from her parched throat.
I'm the slow dying flower,
Frost killing hour,
Sweet turning sour,
And untouchable.
Her mother is downstairs, but she chooses not to hear the anguish of her child, blinded by lies and infected by the devil. Or too afraid to do anything. Roxie is in the next room, but he will make sure she never knows the truth of what happens in her big sister's bedroom.
She isn't sure how long she has remained like this, silent and whimpering like the pathetic child that he has told her she is, all she knows is that she has been told to get up off the floor. But she won't, not this time.
Veronica knows all too well what will happen if she abandons her position.
And she won't let him win, not this time.
The first time it happened was too much for her small body, but she knows that if it happens again she won't be able to cope. She already feels dirty, repulsive and contaminated. Again would destroy her.
I need the darkness,
The sweetness,
The sadness,
The weakness
Oh, I need this.
She wonders if this is how every child is treated, her sparkling blue eyes brimming with more tears at the dismal thought; if every father does the unthinkable to punish his little girl. Maybe she is just being childish, maybe this is normal.
I need a lullaby,
A kiss goodnight,
Angel sweet, love of my life,
Oh I need this
Or maybe she is deserving of this reprimand. She knows she shouldn't have taken his flask without asking, but the cool liquid feels such a relief when it trickles down her throat that she couldn't help herself. Ronnie is the tender age of ten, but she has already discovered the elusive joys of alcohol.
"Now now, V," his voice is as smooth as silk, sickeningly maternal but laced with derision. "Don't start this again. You remember what happened last time,"
I'm the slow dying flower,
Frost killing hour,
Sweet turning sour,
And untouchable.
Ronnie does remember what happened last time, her hand moving automatically to her back that is now a suspicious shade of purple. A Wince contorts her face as she recalls the way his hand had slapped in an incessant tune against her skin. She lifts her head, desperately not wanting to. But she is unable to disobey a direct instruction from him. Even now she wants to make him happy, despite trying to hate him.
"That's my little girl," he croons, kneeling to her level. Reaching out a hand, he caresses her cheek with all the tenderness of a father. A repulsive grin tugs at the corners of his lips when he feels her shudder and sob under his calloused touch. Archie loves the feeling of immense power he holds over his daughter, love that he can command her with a glance and make her submit to his will with a simple touch.
The door opens then, creaking in silence as if it is afraid to deserve what is going on. Her mother stands in the doorway, looking frightfully small in her nightclothes and bathed in the landing light so that she looks oddly ethereal. Averting her face, there is no spark of recognition of fear for her eldest daughter behind her eyes as she sees him towering over her while she cries on the carpet.
Do you remember the way that you touched me before?
All the trembling sweetness I loved and adored
"Mum?" she manages to croak through her tears. "Mummy, please let me come with you,"
Ronnie pleads with her, trying to catch her mother's eye. She knows that this is her only hope, praying that the woman who was supposed to protect her to the death would show some mercy. Glenda stands motionlessly in the doorframe, her white hands hangs clinging to it as if to stop herself from falling; her eyes don't register any emotion, her lips remaining it a firm line, but a small tremble seizes her.
"What do you want?" he asks, eyes flashing dangerously when his wife rolls her cheek away from his hand.
"I just-"she hesitates. Her gaze turns to Ronnie and she looks at her, really looks at her as she makes her choice: the choice between saving her little girl or suffering the dreadful punishment herself. The path she picks leaves Ronnie with an empty space in the pit of her stomach and an un-uttered scream caught in her throat.
Your face saving promises whispered like prayers,
But I don't need them
"I just wanted to tell you that I've made you some supper. It's your favourite cheese," her voice is almost a whisper, as silent as the air outside.
"Good," he waves his hand in a dismissal. "I'll be down soon, but first our little Veronica needs teaching a lesson,"
A quick nod and then the door shuts behind her along with Ronnie's final chance at salvation.
In that instant she realises she will never forgive her mother; can never forgive her for abandoning her when she needed her the most. In later years she would also realise that it was why she could never forgive herself after letting her own child go.
She hugs her knees to her chest and they dig in painfully as she watches her Dad pace closer, smiling. Closing her eyes, she makes a promise that she will never let anyone close enough to hurt her again, that she will keep her emotions hidden behind a protective layer; if no one holds the key to her heart then they can't break it anymore than her parents are doing now. When she becomes a Mum one day, she will do everything she can to care for her baby.
His sinks down to her level on the floor, face looming inches from hers.
Triumphant.
His hand reaches out to caress her neck, sliding down to her shoulders carefully. She is just a ten year old girl who loves to ride on her bike in the garden and likes to cuddle up with her little sister in bed at night, but now her maimed heart cries out to the heavens for them to make it stop.
But it doesn't stop.
And all she can do is shut her eyes and trying of think of something, anything, except his malice distorted face.
Now, twenty four years later she screams again for the mother who left, sobs again for the father who tarnished her soul but who she can't stop loving. She had thought that she would never have to relive the experience again, but telling Roxie has made her unspoken anguish of so many years come pouring out. Desperate to erase the memory, she begins to tear at her own skin, the nails digging in mercilessly as she tries to destroy any part of her that has been touched by him. Flecks of crimson explode on her arms, bury in her nails.
She wants it to end; needs it to end before it destroys her.
I need the darkness,
The sweetness,
The sadness,
The weakness,
Oh I need this,
I need a lullaby,
A kiss goodnight,
Angel sweet love of my life,
Oh I need this.
As a child she had hated the darkness, but now it is the only thing that brings her salvation and the only place where she forgets. Where she can't see his face and she is alone with her own thought where no one else can read her. She drags herself to her feet, shutting the curtains and then returning to her spot of the floor.
Well is it dark enough?
Can you see me?
Do you want me?
Can you reach me?
Or I'm leaving.
She thinks a grim satisfaction that her final act will be to disobey her father, knowing that he would never have truly wanted this. To torture her he needed her alive.
"Is this what you wanted, Dad?" She yells out loud as the first pill slips into her mouth, easily sliding down her neck.
"Did you want to kill me, Dad?" She questions the darkness, more of the tablets quickly following the first.
When the jar is empty, she begins to wait, an odd feeling strangling her heart. It feels comforting to know that she will no longer spend her life waiting for that turning moment when everything changes for the better, that she is at last waiting for something reliable, something inevitable: death.
Her vision starts to fade then, a blur of random thoughts racing through her mind. Slowly, her eyelids flutter; her breathing slows, coming in rasping heaves. The pill bottle falls with a cold clink of finality to the ground.
Before her final breath is uttered, her last thought isn't of Roxie, isn't of the man she loved, but of her father. He has controlled her until the end; even in death she will never be free.
Then shut your mouth,
And hold your breath,
You kiss me now,
You catch your death.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed it. Please review even if you didn't! I hope I got Ronnie right!