Goodbye, Daniel
A Mirror, Mirror Fanfiction
~1997~
When he first came, and she was so hostile, so against his coming, Mandy could hardly believe she'd be standing at the Greyton station with a lump in her throat, seeing Daniel off. Funny, how hating him seemed forever ago; like she'd been another person then.
Now she doesn't see a half-brother intruding where he isn't wanted; she sees her fellow member of the Crown Foundation, and she's really going to miss him.
She wishes – almost, almost – he wasn't going back with Caroline, with his mum. She wishes – almost – he could stay here with them forever. Her animosity evaporated into nothing in light of all their recent adventures, as well as their shared missing of Constance – whose overgrown grave she doesn't want to visit again but supposes she will, all the same, and with flowers – she's even wearing the stupid T-shirt he gave her of the opera house.
Throwing her arms around his middle underneath his puffy jacket, she breathes in deep and sighs. Pulling back from their hug, she rasps, "I'm glad your train wasn't derailed after all." Her cheeks are flushed, eyes bright with teasing and dripping nose scarlet. "I didn't really want it to roll into the sea and for you to drown. We didn't." She glances over her shoulder at Fergus. "Did we, Fergus?"
He shrugs. "Maybe just a little bit."
"Fergus!"
But she lets him put his arm around her as they wave goodbye and the train belches smoke and Daniel's window is nothing more than a reflective glint that, in the enveloping distance, isn't wholly unlike the glint of their vanished attic mirror.
She swallows hard. Tears spill over. Tears! For the half-brother who invited himself to Limerick House. Who barged in when they already had Auntie Lily to cope with.
Life was so strange.
"Goodbye, Daniel."