Okay, I'll be honest. There's no reason for not keeping up with this story other than sheer lack of interest. Some of you may have seen my new Edward Scissorhands fic, but that might be on hold until I get this one sorted. I'm FINALLY finished with school and I'm free for the summer so I will make a concerted effort to write more and hopefully wrap this story up. Anyway, shit's getting real - so read on peeps!~

The Only Exception

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman? Woody Allen

He honestly wasn't sure if he could still feel the cold of winter until it hit him like a sledge hammer to the chest. Of all questions to ask, it had to be that one, huh? After six centuries he wasn't sure he wanted to bother recalling any of that. None of it mattered now anyways.

But Autumn was looking up at him expectantly, so he sighed.

"Well babes, it's a bit like being born," he supposed. "Only backwards."

"That doesn't make any sense," she grumbled.

Betelgeuse leaned back a bit and kicked his legs up and down. "Kind of hard to explain it to a breather. But that's about right."

She looked down towards the thinly covered river, pensive. "Does it hurt?"

He fixed her with a hard glare. "You ain't thinking about trying it now, are ya? 'Cause that's the worst way to go – suicide gets ya nothing but trouble."

Sure, she thought. "How much trouble?"

"Well babes," he began his lecture. "Suicide lands you with a civil servant position. Ya know, pushing paperwork around and getting yelled at a lot. You think you got it rough now, try working for Juno."

That name sounded familiar to her. Hadn't someone talked about a Juno before? She couldn't quite place it though.

"Who's Juno?"

"Some old hag who fancies herself a case worker. Personally, babes, I think she exists to make my life a living hell."

"...but you're dead."

The look he gave her then sent her into a fit of giggles. She couldn't help it. The idea of Betelgeuse being harassed by some little old lady was enough to crack her up and shine some light onto her rather dismal mood.

Betelgeuse grinned. "So why the long face, then?"

Autumn stifled her amusement and crossed her legs. The cold wind no longer felt like such an issue anymore. She suspected that maybe she was going numb, but couldn't be bothered to care. There was no way in hell she'd go back to the house yet. A childish part of her wanted Craig and Lydia to worry about her and come looking. The logical side insisted that would be a VERY BAD idea.

"Lydia's pissed," she told him. "Craig...I just can't be around him anymore without wanting to break something. Not plates either."

"Trouble in paradise," he nodded as though he understood. "I understand. Well, here's what I'll do for ya. I'll scare him so bad he won't ever come back to the house. He can go running back to the big city and you can stay here!"

"That resolves nothing though..." she murmured. "I have to break it off. I'm just...worried he won't take it well. I'm not scare of him, per se, but..."

Betelgeuse looked at her then. Really looked at her. She was a lovely creature. She was smart and driven, with her own interests and passions. Poor Autumn didn't deserve this shit. And here he was, feeling uncharacteristically sorry for her. What a sap he was becoming!

"He ain't right for ya," he said quietly. She nodded.

"He's had such a privileged life," she said, almost angrily. "Nothing horrible ever happened to him growing up, so it's really impossible for him to understand me at all. And if I tried to tell him, I know I'd only get sympathy and that's the last thing I need to deal with."

"So what happened to you?"

Autumn inhaled sharply. That was too much to let slip. She didn't want to talk about it. Didn't want to relive it. That time in her life was a shadow, one that threatened rain on the rest of her life. None of her friends knew about it, and certainly not Craig. She wasn't that "mysterious Goth girl" for no reason.

But maybe finally telling someone (the person she'd ironically chosen as her confidante) could help her heal a little. Someone detached with an objective view. Betelgeuse wouldn't look down on her or feed her any sympathy, she knew that.

"Do you remember how I told you that my mom was a fashion photographer?" she began. He nodded. Yeah, that's who named her...her mom. "Well, when I was in middle school something strange began happening to her. She would have these random spasms, dropping things or twitching. She told us not to worry, so Dad and I shrugged it off. But it only got worse – she complained of joint pain and when her limbs began locking up, we knew something was wrong.

"The doctors said she had Parkinson's disease. There's no cure and the treatments they had her on weren't really working. It just got worse." Autumn wrapped her arms tightly around herself, whether to stave off cold or emotion, Betelgeuse wasn't sure. But she continued on.

"If the physical tremors and spasms weren't bad enough, she started acting strangely. She would laugh at things that weren't funny, forget my name, tell my Dad she didn't know who he was...it was a sudden onset of dementia. We didn't know what to do.

"I loved my mom. I took time off school to help take care of her while Dad was busy with work and I nearly had to redo eighth grade because my scores were so bad. When I was in high school, Dad made the decision to put her in a home, where someone could look after her."

Well, that was intense. Betelgeuse let out a long breath, not that he needed to. "So, how's she doing now?"

Autumn blinked. "She died last year."

Lydia was perched on the couch in the living room, staring absently at the fire. She'd been there for an hour now, waiting for Autumn to come back. Craig he given up after her scolding and retreated to the bedroom. With the way things were, she didn't see a future for her cousin and this controlling young man.

Earlier she'd almost spilled the beans about her cousin's past. But that was none of her business, if Autumn had wanted Craig to know that stuff she would have talked about it before. Then again, it was always hard for Autumn to talk about her mother.

Lydia had gone to St. Peter's Home for the Disabled with Autumn once, when she was seventeen. Autumn had taken to wearing some of Lydia's old clothing from the 80's – sharing her penchant for black lace and wide brimmed hats. But Olivia didn't share that interest at all.

She'd taken one look at Autumn (not that she could remember she had a daughter to begin with) and began screaming obscenities. Autumn had been faced with her mother calling her a demon, a witch, a whore, and a whole slew of rotten monikers. The poor girl had recoiled in absolute terror and running sobbing from the room.

That was the last time Lydia ever saw Olivia. It was so hard to watch her once lovely aunt deteriorate into a tangled mess of amnesia and pain. She could only imagine how difficult it was for Autumn, who had been so close with her artsy mother.

Lydia had never really been that close with her birth mom, and so her leaving and Delia's arrival was more of an annoyance than anything else. But as an adult, she'd grown to be quite friendly with her step-mom and the thought of something terrible happening to her made her stomach tighten sickeningly.

She would never, ever want her own children to deal with something like that either. It would break her heart to watch her own children suffering while she deteriorated or slipped into dementia. Idly, she wondered how Olivia felt before she lost herself completely.

Autumn had taken a chance and brought Betelgeuse with her to Sally's diner. As soon as they'd stepped through the door, Susan had taken a step back. "He's cool," she'd told the waitress. "He's with me."

She didn't relax entirely though and took their order rather stiffly. This time Autumn didn't bother with coffee. She ordered a cup of tea with a slice of lemon. Betelgeuse had seemed a bit ruffled that they didn't serve beer, so he opted for a cheeseburger instead.

"You don't really need to eat, do you?" she'd asked in a low voice.

"Course not!" he grinned. "Don't mean it doesn't taste good though."

"Oh," Autumn clucked. "So you're wasting my money with the excuse that it simply tastes good? Stay classy, B."

The remainder of their "date" in the diner consisted of more witty bantering back and forth. Autumn had looked on in mild disgust while Betelgeuse wolfed down the burger and inhaled the fries. He did offer her some, but she graciously declined, sipping her tea daintily.

They walked slowly back up to the house. For his part, Betelgeuse was a bit nervous for her. She'd unloaded a lot on him today and he was still trying to figure out how to feel about it. Sure, it sucked about her ol' lady, but everyone he knew in his old life was dead too and you didn't see him whining about it.

The biggest hurdle facing her now was how to handle the boy-toy that she needed to toss out. And he had her back the whole way – honestly, he just didn't like the kid. A pretentious little rocker boy, he wasn't good enough for the likes of his writer extraordinaire. Wait, his?

But there was no more time to think, they'd already reached the front door. He faded from view and, invisible, watched Autumn straighten her shoulders and march into the house.