September 29. 2026
Rose stood before her old house. It was weird to think that she hadn't entered in almost two months; the time flew by with empty promises she made to herself to come back and get her possessions. Everything she owned was there. She was finally going back in.
It was a house that could be described as old: the white paint was peeling around the door and some of the windows were cracked. It was a two-story house and it even had the old style shutters on the bottom halves of the windows with no glass under them. The house really hadn't been updated in a long time.
To tell the truth, Rose was actually quite fond of the house, just not its sole inhabitant right now. She liked how the house was a fixer-upper and that there was the potential for so many stories in its old age. Looking from the outside in, she could envision the house in a different time and different age. Perhaps an old happily married couple lived there at one point, or a young family just getting started. She had one good picture of the house with the sun rising in the background that seemed to transport the whole scene to the 1600's.
Rose never would have thought she cared about houses or what sort of house she ever wanted to live in, but when her mind was wandering, as it was wont to do when she lived there, those thoughts helped keep her mind occupied; away from the bad memories.
When she and Danny moved to England and were looking for a house, even though Danny was estranged from his parents, his parents let the two of them move in with a very generous rent. This house actually belonged to Danny's deceased grandfather, though nobody had lived there in years and years. The two moved in without too many problems. The main floor was livable, but the upstairs was uninhabitable, the floor and walls stripped of wallpaper and flooring. It was on the to-do list for Rose, just one of the many things she wanted to tackle. She always had the wishful thinking that when Danny got better they would work on it together, but Danny never got better and she never got around to it.
Currently the grass around the house was long and unkept, untouched in the two months she'd been gone. From where she was standing outside the house's boundary, one could almost say the whole property looked abandoned. Rose took a deep, frustrated sigh. She worked hard to make it not look that way, but obviously Danny didn't care about it the way she did.
Rose took steps closer to the house, trying to keep her temper in check. The more she thought about everything, Danny, the house, the accident, Danny's attitude, and Danny's head-strong father – the angrier she got. Everything had accelerated so quickly and gotten out of hand. The 'prank' telephone calls, well that was just the icing on top of the big rotten cake.
She got a wild urge, something in her telling her to be reckless and impulsive. Rose just wanted to kick down the door, bust it off its hinges, and barge in. She wanted to scream and rage and call Danny hundreds of types of idiots. She just wanted him to not be who he was now.
Her fists were clenched at her side as she waded through the grass up closer.
Take it easy. . . Marta advised.
She needed to slow down. This visit had to be worth it and for that she needed to be able to control her emotions.
Rose abruptly stopped halfway to the door and shut her eyes. She slowly upturned the palms of her hands and loosened her fingers. The wind was tugging on the loose tendrils around her face and her coat. Outside was her safety. If she shut her eyes the house was no longer there and Danny was no longer this ominous presence that she was scared to face.
You can't keep running, she was reminded. This was going to be hard, facing something that she hadn't thought about since she broke the TV and stormed out. She was going to try to figure out this small piece of her past. In her 21 years of age, she was now just focused on two of the most recent years.
Thinking more rationally and realising that she would most likely bounce off the door if she tried to kick it down, she turned the doorknob and went inside.
The house was quiet. Like the last time she was here, there was garbage and take out containers littered around the living room, though surprisingly less than she would have thought in the time she was gone. Her muddy footprints were still caked on the carpet from her last huge entrance and exit, and the TV she had ruined with the wrench was pushed behind a newer TV. Of course he wouldn't change when she was gone. Of course he would still do nothing.
She didn't understand it. She didn't understand him anymore.
Rose walked inside the house, not really caring how loud she was. She even left her shoes on. The floor was already disgustingly dirty, what were more footprints?
"Danny, where the bloody hell are you. I know you're here," she called out. Let him know she was here. Let him come out and find her. She casually kicked her way through the garbage, booting a pop can across the room. This was disgusting. She just didn't care. She didn't care. She didn't care. Rose wanted to punch a wall. . . she was frustrated by what she was seeing. Outside appearances were deceiving, the whole illusion of the house shattered when actually inside it.
Rose heard movement in the back and so she followed the sound to their old room, her old room.
The sight that met her was one that shocked her. All her clothes, her traveling gear, her possessions – laying all over the floor in a haphazard mess, like they were thrown around and beat. She could barely see the floor. Danny was behind the bed, laying with his torso on it. His arm was stretched out half across the bed and acting as a pillow for his head. Her cell phone was clutched in his hand not too far from her.
Danny looked utterly defeated, his face barely registering her when his eyes flicked over to her. His brown hair was longer and messy, almost forming dreadlocks. His face hadn't been shaved in who knows how long and he had lost some of his weight from last time she'd seen him.
"You came. . . they said you'd come," he said to her, almost astonished. He didn't bother to lift his head up.
Her fists slowly unclenched. She couldn't remember when she had clenched them again. Just looking at him, Rose felt her anger deflate from her. How could she be mad at him when he looked so pitiful? She took a step inside the room and sunk down against the wall, facing him. She wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned her head against the wall. They stared at each other.
"What are you doing?" she whispered to him.
"I need you back. . . I don't know what to do anymore," he told her.
"You never knew what to do when I was here. I tried and tried. This is all something you have to do for yourself now."
"You don't know what it was like. . . I can't do anything." He still lay in his same position, the same wretched position.
"Yes you can!" Rose said. "Stop making excuses for yourself and bringing yourself down. You need to figure out where you want to go with your life and start living again. Why are you still letting this psychological stuff stop you?"
"Who are you to judge me? It didn't happen to you. You know nothing of how I feel."
Life kicked everyone down at one point in their life. It kicked Danny down in Chile while free solo climbing in the Andes. He hadn't gotten back up yet.
Rose sighed and put her hands to her head. "I know. You know what; I honestly couldn't even imagine what it's like. I've never broken my back and been unable to move for weeks and weeks. I've never felt that sort of pain before. I know. The only thing I do know though is that if it had happened to me, I would have reacted way different than you did. As soon as I was able to start the physio to build muscle back up and get stronger, I would have. It was your attitude that got you down and it's still keeping you down."
"Well you try having your doctor tell you that you can never climb again. I lived for it. It's the only reason why I left England and went traveling. It's who I am. And then what happened to Rick. . . how didn't it affect you? You're not human, Rosie."
His breathing was getting heavier. Rose decided to just not comment on the 'Rosie' bit for there were more important things to worry about at the moment. Like Rick. She was startled he brought up Rick. . . for the past nine months it was the huge elephant that sat between them. He never wanted to talk about it before, and really, neither did she. It was too horrible to think of and to focus on the memory. But this was a conversation that she needed to bring everything to the table for. She brought the memory up to the front.
"You act like I wasn't there when it happened," she said slowly. She closed her eyes and the visions were flashing across them. His impish grin, brown hair getting blown in the wind, listening to laughter, the sound of birds chirping. . . Her body started shaking. Sometimes she hated how she could recall scenes and pictures so intensely. "Who do you think had to climb down after you two just fell? Who do you think had to go get help and try to keep you two warm and stable until the help arrived. You were bleeding, and neither of you were conscious, and I couldn't move you because of the possibility of neck and spinal injuries. It affected me, perhaps in a different way, but I just couldn't let it stop me mentally. I had to get help for you two."
"Rick died. You never said one thing to me about it."
She really didn't want to talk about Rick. She never wanted to talk about it when it happened and she sure wasn't ready now. She was losing her resolve. Rose tried to stop her shaking but couldn't. It was all too real to her still, too vivid in her mind.
"You know me! I don't – can't. . . I have troubles. . . talking about things like that and you do too. You know I rarely told stories of my past and – I. . . I know he died, but neither of us wanted to have this conversation! We've been skirting around this issue since it happened – putting it behind your doctor visits and surgery and trying to get money to pay for everything. We're both closed people about important things and we grieve differently. You chose TV and alcohol. I chose keeping busy and not letting my mind think of it."
"You didn't know Rick like I did."
Back about a year and a half ago, she met Danny and Rick at a hostel in Salta, Argentina. They were best friends from London where they had lived their whole lives before deciding to head out into the world. They both had already been travelling and climbing mountains around the world for 7 years before Rose met them. She was 19 and they were 24. They were former rugby players and came from rather wealthy families. She was just getting into climbing, with only a few ascents under her belt and they were hard-core real climbers.
Rose pulled her knees up closer to her chest, trying to make herself smaller. Reliving the past was something she wasn't comfortable with. But she was trying. "I know. You guys grew up together, you were closer than brothers. If it was me and one of my friends or cousins, I would probably not be in a very good spot either. But you never stopped looking at the past after it happened. You weren't living. You still aren't. . . "
"I'm living. Of course I am. Do you hear the breaths I'm taking; that my heart is beating. I don't know if I want to be though. I should have died that day too."
"We knew the risks of free climbing," Rose whispered. "We knew them, but what did we care, we thought we were fine, we'd solo climbed lots of mountains before, and you two hundreds – even thousands more than me. But so much can change so fast, us in this room having this conversation attests to that. And we never realized what was actually at stake until it happened, right? If you were but a bit higher, you probably would have died as well."
"Like you said, I'm not living now," Danny replied bitterly. "I can't – I can't stop thinking of it. Over and over it doesn't move from my head. He – Rick was laughing, we were racing, and then his hold broke away. I just – I saw his face as he fell past and I heard you screaming in the background and – I tried to catch him, Rose, I tried to catch him. But I missed."
Danny fell silent and lifted his head off of his arm. He was staring blankly ahead, looking past Rose, back into the scenes that haunted him.
His blurred eyes met hers. "His face will forever be stuck in my mind. I can't deal with it. I need the distractions; I can't be in my own head."
And she had both their faces stuck in her mind.
She was a rookie climber, not as confident as the experienced Danny and Rick were. When they went on their excursions, she never climbed as high as they did, preferring to go at a slower pace and make sure her hands and feet were placed correctly. Climbing was something she was really enjoying; it was filled with adrenaline and it completely focused her mind. Since it was a physical and mental challenge, she relished it. But it was perhaps one of the only times where she wasn't impulsive. The risks were higher.
They had left their campsite at daybreak and hiked to their climbing area five hours away. Afternoon had only started and they were trying to squeeze a three-hour climb in before the sun set. A scheduled three-hour climb for them usually took twice as long because of all the talking and Rose's slower pace. Rick and Danny took right off at the beginning, climbing quickly with ease. Rose was going slower, listening to Danny's jibes at her speed with a smile as she concentrated on the climb.
They were about eight metres up. Rose wasn't really listening to them talk anymore but she did hear Rick yell. Small rocks went cascading down before he did. Rose looked up and saw him fall. She screamed when she saw Danny reach out with a hand to try to grab him.
Rick hit the ground with a sickening thud in front of her and then Danny, who had lost his grip on the rock from leaning too far out, fell down after, yelling out in fear. With her eyes squeezed tight she didn't see Danny hit the rocks, but she heard it. There was nothing to block her ears.
Rose was shaking and crying as she huddled against the rock, putting her face against its cool surface. She couldn't move right away, her body was frozen with shock. When she finally managed to get to the ground, she tentatively, oh so nervously walked over to the two men. It was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. Danny was still breathing, though shallowly. There was no movement from Rick. She knew she shouldn't move them or touch them for they had both landed on their backs. She dug through their backpacks, looking for the phone with the GPS to call the paramedics. . .
"Rick wouldn't want to see you like this. . . What is living if you don't move from the couch and are half drunk all day long? You've been out in the world, you've travelled around, you know what's out there. How can you stay inside day by day, seemingly ignorant of that! I don't understand. I haven't understood you for a long time."
Though now that they were opening up about everything, she could actually understand his reasoning's more. He had never told her anything before. She knew, of course, that Rick was on his mind all the time. But that was just from observations. Other than physiotherapy for his back, he probably needed to see a therapist for depression and for a more healthy recovery of his friend's death.
He needed someone who wouldn't let him walk all over them, like Rose tended to because she was afraid to set him off. He needed someone other than her for help.
"Well I didn't understand you either," Danny said angrily. "You were never in the house and never stood still. You always had to be doing something. Why couldn't you just sit with me? Why couldn't we ignore the world together?"
"Because I'm not like that. We're two completely opposite people. I run from my past, I've always been running. You, you live in the past and can't get out of it." That was perhaps the most truthful thing Rose could have said. She knew everything about Danny, because all he liked talking about was his controlling father, his childhood, and his friends. Rose had never shared anything personal, she also really couldn't, with her being a witch and magic an inconcievable thing for Danny.
They were silent after that. Danny was back to looking off into the distance right beside Rose's head. His hand was still outstretched with her old cell phone in it.
Their relationship, back when they became a couple, was formed on adrenaline and the physical exertions of what they both enjoyed. For Rose, it was a way to escape and for Danny, a way to prove his father wrong. He always talked about how his father was expecting him to come crawling home and finally take over the family company. It was a life that Danny was trying to keep away from, but in the end was forced back into it by the circumstances.
"Why have you been calling me. . . us. . . Over and over. Multiple times," asked Rose tiredly.
"They said you'd come back if I did it. And you did, you came back. I need you Rose. Please stay, we came work everything out."
It was like emotional blackmail. She couldn't stay. It killed her inside when she was here. They were both damaged and couldn't help each other out in the ways they needed to be helped. He never pressed her into talking, and she needed someone who wouldn't let her hide away.
"Really Danny. . . " she sighed. "How many times did you promise that before? We're not together anymore. We haven't been for quite some time really even though it was never discussed. You need a doctor and someone who will get you out of the. . . stump you're in. The help can't come from me because I too need help, but in a different way. We don't talk and comfort each other when we're together, we never have. We're just complete opposites, and not in the way that works."
"We work," Danny spit out.
It was time to move. She had shared, spoke, and explained all that she was going to say on the subject. She'd said what she came to say, even if she didn't realise it before. She would never be able to forget what happened, nor forget her stint with Danny, but she had different things to focus on now. She had to move on.
Rose unraveled her legs and reached out lightning-quick to grab her cell phone from his hand. "I'll take this back, it was never yours to begin with."
He started. "You give that back! You have no right to take that."
Rose stood up. "I'll also be gathering everything I own. Maybe that will help you; you need to get me out of your head. Look to the future, not the past." She pulled out Molly's handbag and started moving around, throwing clothes, shoes, and her traveling supplies into the bag. Why was everything of hers so scattered? Did Danny just terrorise the whole place without any regard whatsoever for what was hers? This was her well-earned money! These were all she owned! She noticed a few of her shirts were ripped, and not by her doing. Rose shot glares up at Danny with each new one she noticed.
Danny stood up a little shakily. "Stop right now. You can't take anything. You're going to live here. Don't go."
"Do you realize I have been wearing almost the same thing every day for the past two months? I can continue doing it for the next six as well; I don't have to leave with anything and can just go now. We've talked. I have nothing more to say."
Rile him up a bit love, Greg said. Let's get some action going.
No. Rose wasn't going to. She could feel Marta's approval, and Greg's dissapointment. And when she thought about it, she realised that it was the last time she was in this house, talking with Danny (or more accurately fighting) was when the voices appeared. Rose paused in her packing and looked around her. Were they from something in the house?
Danny didn't stay anything as he stood and stared at her through her packing. Rose didn't care that she was stuffing unimaginable amounts in Molly's small handbag. She didn't care if it was considered magic in front of a muggle or if Danny even noticed. She found one of her trousers with the whole left leg cut off and just held it up silently in front of Danny, questioning him on what-the-fuck he had been thinking. He didn't look ashamed at all. Nor did he provide answers.
A sudden horrible thought seized her: if he touched her clothes, what about her camera and all her pictures from her travels? Those were perhaps the only thing she owned that she cared about the most.
"If you touched. . . " she started to say, but then didn't finish her sentence, too worried. She quickly crawled forwards and pulled out the bottom drawer of the armoire, tugging out her fabric covers. She rapidly flipped through the pictures inside them. None of the pictures were ruined. She breathed thankfully and put her pictures in the handbag. Her camera was a muggle one, but she luckily was able to barter for it at a cheap price with a fellow adventurer who just bought herself a new one. She turned it on and off to see if it would work still. It did.
"I wouldn't touch them. . . I know how special they are to you. I just lost control with the some of your clothes. . . It wasn't my fault. They – they told me to and I listened. But I didn't when they said to do it with your pictures."
Well whoever 'they' were, Rose was furious at them. Who the hell would tell Danny to destroy her belongings? It was stupid. However, having clothes that were ruined was a small price to the safety of her pictures. At least Danny didn't listen to them in that regard.
Rose finished packing up everything on the floor and moved to the bathroom, the kitchen, and then the entrance. Still Danny didn't comment on the huge amounts being shoved into the small handbag. Perhaps he really was oblivious, or perhaps he just knew that if he said anything else, something bad would happen. Rose definitely was considering stunning him if he aggravated her more, with no second thoughts.
In the kitchen she pulled out the phonebook and folded down a few pages in the book.
"Call one of these numbers and go talk to a therapist. Go to your dad, tell him what happened and ask for money. You need to swallow your pride and open up with your family. They can help you. You need to stop putting pressure on me to stay. You're only putting more distance between us and I will not stay any longer in this house."
Rose pulled down the business card on the fridge. "This is the physiotherapist's number that you were supposed to call. Call now and they will help you regain your strength and get healthy again. Never take a doctor's diagnosis as concrete. Things can change still Danny. Never give up hope. But you need to be proactive and actually do something about everything. Stop sitting around and moping. This has gone on long enough."
Danny, who had been following her around the house like a puppy dog collapsed into a kitchen chair and didn't say anything as he looked at what Rose had in front of him. She pushed it closer to him and then left the room.
She stopped in the living room. She really shouldn't. . . but she did anyway. Rose pulled out her wand and started vanishing some of the garbage that was sitting around. Actually she vanished it all. It was a small thing she could do before she left. The rest was up to Danny.
Not a smart idea, commented Marta. He'll notice that for sure.
She didn't care.
Rose was going to come back and check on him in a few weeks. She would never tell Danny that of course, for he would probably wait around for her. He needed to move on.
"Goodbye Danny," Rose said. She was officially closing this chapter of her life. She had dealt with it, it was done.
However, she was on the front doorstep when she heard footsteps behind her.
"Please don't go Rosie. I – I love you."
She just about decked him right there. Instead, Rose controlled her temper, rolled her eyes and repeated, "goodbye." She wasn't leaving like last time.
"They said you'd stay. . . they promised. Don't go."
"Ok. Who the hell is 'they'? You haven't left the house practically since you moved in. You the hell do you talk to?"
Danny's eyes widened.
"Well?" demanded Rose.
"It's – I have voices in my head. They tell me things. They started talking to me the day you left Rosie. And I'm not going crazy, I swear."
Well, fuck. Perhaps this chapter wasn't closed yet.
A/N: Free solo climbing is climbing without any ropes or harnesses. Basically it's just you, the rock, and your skill.