Author's Notes: thanks for the reviews as always guys, and thanks for the faves and follows!
Where in the timeline: all over TASM really. If you've watched the movie you'll know where it is... If you haven't, well, you'll probably understand it anyway.
Letter: D
Word: Depression
After the death of George Stacy, things became a struggle in his house. Not only were funeral arrangements constantly being made, but there was also constant phone calls from various people on both sides of the family or of absolutely no relation, offering their deepest condolences. There was the constant sound of crying. Not everyone cried at once, but there were enough people in the house that they unintentionally cried at intervals.
Then the funeral was over, and Gwen became numb. She knew her father was dead that week before the funeral, she had missed him terribly as well, but it didn't fully hit her until she saw him in the casket. She immediately wished she hadn't looked. That was not her dad. That was not brave Captain Stacy of the NYPD, that was a dead body. Lifeless and meaningless. It just etched in stone what had been scribbled on a note from the department.
Maybe things would have been better, perhaps she could have prevented this, if Peter had been there for her. But he dropped her. She understood why, yes, she certainly got it, by that was why it was that much more infuriating. She was angry at her father for making him promise such a thing, and she was mad at Peter for obliging.
On top of her losses, her mother began growing ever fainter, until three weeks after her husband's death she was only a hollow shell. Gwen became something different though, she set to tasks with a begrudged determination, picking up the slack for her mother around the house. She fell into a routine of doing something every moment of the day, then ached and cried during the night. She was overworking herself, and getting no sleep to compensate.
School was honestly the worst of it all. She felt disgusting, too tired to wake up early to put on makeup or match her earrings and boots. Things like that didn't matter anymore. Her hair was often left to air dry and puff up, later to be pulled into a messy bun, and she found herself wearing skinny jeans and a comfy pair of ugg boots to school more often than anything else. Rumors began going around that she was self-harming.
It took her a while to realize she had fallen into a deep depression... And she couldn't get out.
The realization only made it worse, just like anything else that happened. It gutted her of all hope and willpower, and eventually she stopped doing the work around the house. Her homework would be next.
She often had dreams of her father and Peter, though never in the same one.
Her father often showed up as if it was a normal thing, like he had never stopped being there. It would make her happy while she slept, but it caused her to sob hopelessly once awake. Then there were other dreams where he would give her a tidbit of silly advice, and once she even witnessed his death in a dream. The scenario was not even close to what happened with the Lizard, and she knew it, but it was horrific nonetheless. Peter showed up in her dreams as her boyfriend, loving, tender, awkward Peter Parker. Those dreams, too, caused her to cry.
This lasted until January, when Peter stopped avoiding her gaze and began to intentionally meet it instead. By mid February he gave her a smile whenever they passed in the hallway. It was a bashful, ashamed smile, but it was there. She wasn't imagining it.
Things certainly did not right themselves then, they wouldn't for a long time. But this made it better. She at least had a shred of hope that Peter was beginning to see the light, to see that they both needed each other.
Then one night in March, he tapped on her window.
The sudden noise caused her to startle severely, jolting every part of her body. She opened the window, though, and a dazed Spider-Man tumbled through it.
He fell forward onto her armchair, slurring an apology for getting blood on it.
She dismissed the apology immediately and retrieved the first aid kit under her bed. She got one the first time Peter showed up at her window, and never brought herself to move it. Very few words were exchanged as she patched him up, and those said by Peter were very apologetic and very slurred. He claimed to have been pepper sprayed in the face by a woman after the bullies he saved her from knocked him around a bit. He was bleeding, blinded and disoriented.
Needless to say, he was pretty worse for wear. He spent the night on the armchair.
She spent the night in her bed, curled up into a ball, trying to convince herself he only came out of necessity, not that he had wanted to. When Gwen awoke for school, he was gone. She thought it must have been a dream.
But then in English that day, he was told not to make promises he couldn't keep. He sat down behind Gwen, and muttered, "Yeah... But those are the best kind."
For the first time in many months, a genuine grin bloomed across the face of Gwen Stacy.