Disclaimer: How is it possible to forget how to upload a chapter from week to week? Honestly.
Author's note: A few people will know I am not a big fan of Chloe's cannon portrayal as I feel she comes across as at best a trope, and at worst a caricature. As a result, it's been fairly difficult to find her 'voice', but I wanted to try. It goes without saying this whole fic is AU: there is no Barden, no a capella, no Chaubrey brotp. I suppose this is a 'what if' neither had met each other at that point of their lives, so in some ways it's OOC, though I am sticking to my headcannon for both characters as per the movie.
The ending is a little abrupt-I didn't want to extrapolate too much, and the right final sentence just wouldn't present itself.
I suppose I should dedicate this to Jack E. Peace / ourpathunwinding, though clearly she has me beat about 50 stories to 1, so a 1300 word update seems a somewhat meagre offering in exchange. Ah well, hopefully it's the thought that counts.
"We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be."
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
The elevator pings between the whirr of the well-worn CD player trying to skip to the next track. Eventually the first strains of the song relieve the silence.
Elevator to hospital room: Gangasta's Paradise.
Hospital room to snack machine: Geek Stink Breath.
Time between Jamie's coughing fits: Smash It Up.
Each step, each moment, each event in Chloe's life is measured through her music—it's better that way, she tells herself. It's better than being her parents: counting down each second through the ticking of the clock.
"Hey, bug."
"Hey."
Jamie doesn't look so good, and she busies herself with removing her headphones, so he doesn't see how much her hands shake. She is eight now. She is not a baby. Not anymore.
"Come up here," he pats the bed; a feeble movement.
Chloe doesn't need to be told twice, grabbing the nearest chair and dragging it so that she can use it to climb on top of her brother's bed.
"I love you. You know that—right?"
She may be eight but she already knows no good conversations start with that.
"I guess," she shrugs, forcing herself to watch the streaks of rain rolling down the window.
"Chlo—Chloe, look at me."
"WHAT?"
"That." She feels cool fingers barely brush her hand. They feel weird—clammy—and everything in her wants to snatch her hand away. "That." Silence. "This isn't you."
"How would you even know?"
"Okay. I deserve that. I know I wasn't around as much—before. But the clothes? The music? And you're angry." Another silence. "You're always so angry."
The pain in her lip is better than the sting of tears. "Sorry." It comes out wooden. Like when Dad says it's going to be okay. He'll know she's lying straight away. "I'll do better."
"Stop it. I am not Mom and Dad. You don't have to pretend. Not for me. Never for me."
The tears are now as difficult to hold back as her words. "And when you're gone?!" She wants to stop. She does. "What then?" The metallic taste of blood is in her mouth now. But it's not enough. Nothing is enough. "I'm not you." Somehow that tastes worse than the blood. "They hate me." The next words are a whisper because she's so scared; so scared to voice them because what if they're true? "They wish it was me."
"Take that back." It is the tone of lazy summer afternoons. When he wouldn't take her to the beach with his friends. When they called her a cry baby; and when she cried when Jamie would shush her and promise her an ice cream cone if she wouldn't tell. "You'll never say that ever again."
The unusually harsh tone turns her head.
He's blurry, but when she sniffs and knuckles her tears away, there are tears in his own eyes. She feels something in her chest. Like something tearing, a hot rush of some alien feeling rising into her hasn't cried. Not once. Not when they told him. Not when Mom broke down; harsh gulping sobs the likes of which Chloe had never heard before. Not when Chloe started crying because she didn't get it. Not death—that she sort of understood. But why it was happening to them. She'd been good. Jamie was good. He was the most popular boy in high school. He had a girlfriend. He was going to college. He was going to save the world. It wasn't fair. IT WASN'T FAIR.
"I know." It wasn't till his next words that she understood she must have spoken out loud. "Life isn't fair, Chloe. But you can't give up, okay?" A sob. She wasn't sure who's. "They're going to need you. They all need you. Don't shut yourself away. Don't shut them away. For me? Please?"
"I—"
"Please…"
"I'm—" The tubes were in the way but she didn't care. She needed him to know she meant it. She needed him to feel it. "I'm sorry." His tears were as salty as her own where they mixed between pressed cheeks. "I will do better. I will be better. I promise."
"You're already good enough. You've always been good enough. Don't let anyone tell you different."
It's never been more difficult to feel that than this morning.
"Flowers?" It's curt. More of an accusation than a question.
"I just—I just wanted to give you something. Six months. It's a big deal, you know?"
"Six months of one night stands." Chloe can't decipher if the words are simple fact or cruelty.
"I know, but—"
"This isn't a relationship. I thought I made that clear." There's an acrid desperation to the kiss—hard and punishing—though Chloe sometimes wonders if she's really the recipient.
"I just thought—"
"I don't—" pay you think lingers in the air, but Aubrey is never crass enough to say it. She just arranges the myriad of Friday night hotel rooms, penthouse suites, and lonely breakfast morning afters. "want it. I want what we have." Her voice softens, lowers seductively with practiced ease. She's probably an amazing lawyer—a fleeting thought; as most bittersweet—it's not likely that Chloe will ever find out.
"Well, I want you." The flirtatious smile slides onto Chloe's lips with equal ease. "Come here. I have another surprise for you…"
"For serious?" Mixed in with condemnation is something else. Something Aubrey thinks she hides under the covers of the darkness.
Hope.
It's barely a glimmer. Quicksilver. Elusive. Unwelcome.
That is one thing they have in common.
But perhaps they are both doomed to disappointment.
"Should I," the pause is loaded with nerves, the maid clearly worrying about how to ask the question. "throw the flowers out with the rest, m'am? It's just… theyaresobeautiful, and I volunteer at a local church, and they'd love to—"
"Take them." The image of Chloe's individually selected stems shoved carelessly into a trashcan is imprinted behind her eyelids. "Someone should enjoy them."
The maid's response is lost in the litany of it isn't fairs.
It isn't fair that Jamie died.
It isn't fair that he made her promise.
It isn't fair that he hadn't explained what it meant not to shut yourself away.
"Um, m'am. I am sorry, I know it's not my place but…"
"Yes?" It also isn't fair to take her anger out on someone trying to do their job.
"I just wanted to say, in case, you know, it's important, because these look expensive, and if I'd paid all that money, I'd hate to think someone stiffed me or something, I mean I know these cost probably like more than $300, and I've got this thing where…"
"So do I, it's called a lack of time," and it's angry and aching and horrible and honest, and everything she hasn't been for almost 20 years. "I am sorry," unbidden, tears spring into her eyes. "Please, I didn't mean that. I—"
"It's okay. We've all been there. Not like anyone hasn't dated a dick or two in their life. At least yours takes you somewhere fancy, you know? That's gotta count for something, right. So, uh, the flowers—he break your heart?"
She broke her own, Aubrey would argue. "Something like that."
"You going to see him again?"
"I doubt it." This is the end. It has to be.
"Well, you're probably better off." The maid shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot, as if not sure what else to say. "But if you do—tell him to check before he pays. If he can count as high as twenty four, that is. Actually," a sly smile and a wink, "maybe don't tell him, yeah?"
"What do you mean?" It is the whisper of the eight year old, too scared to hear the answer.
"Well, I'm guessing Romeo paid for two dozen, but there's only twenty three."