Here goes. The title and the quotes in this part are taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes, which seemed appropriate. At the moment, I have no clue how long this will be, because any fic I write smashes any outline I write to pieces anyway, so. Hope the voices sound right, especially Michael’s when I get to it, as I'm not used to writing Christian characters.
I’ve said that so many times before, but I’ve never said it like this.
I reached for her. I know I reached for her. I’d melted the ice with my fire, I understood I couldn’t run on it, so I lay there and extended my staff to Charity when she was about to fall and she ought to have been able to grab onto it and she ought to have been safe, damnit.
But she reached for the staff, and that cost her the hold she did have. She fell.
I snapped out my hand, but it was too little, too late. I tried to call for wind, but my voice was a croak. I felt a breeze whip past my head, but it couldn’t save Charity.
No, put the blame where it belongs, Harry.
I couldn’t save her.
I closed my eyes and lay there for a moment, and then I whirled up and around, because I was damned if I was going to lose Molly. Charity had come all this way, she had risked it all, to save her baby girl. I hurried over to Molly and grabbed her, muttering words that I couldn’t even hear, pushing so much will into them that Molly started shivering as if she had a fever in a second, because I’d overheated her.
Then I saw her face.
I had to look away.
“Mom?” she whispered, and I saw her from the corner of my eye reaching up to rub at her face, as if she could change things if she just looked at them differently.
Oh, I thought, as my heart gave a limp, painful beat and then just sat there and hurt. This is what your heart breaking feels like.
Somehow, we got everyone out. And Thomas got Charity’s body. He clambered down from the parapet to pick her up. He wouldn’t let me carry her, even though I wanted to. He gave me a vampire look when I tried, and jerked his head at Molly.
I got it, right. Comfort the girl. She’s the one who’s still alive.
Murphy stayed close to Molly, too, but she didn’t say anything. She just made sure that she was always in some sort of contact with Molly, even when we were running away from Arctis Tor and the Winter fae that came charging in. A hand on her shoulder, an elbow resting against her side, the brush of a finger against a cheek. Molly, even sobbing, seemed to know that Murphy was there, and she went with her quietly, tamely.
I was glad they were there. I couldn’t have come back, and neither could Molly, without them.
When I say “couldn’t have come back,” I mean it. There was a moment, when I was facing the Winter fae, when I really wanted to charge ahead and just risk it all in a hopeless fight, not trying to defend myself, giving in and giving up.
Guilt can kill. I’ve almost let it have me, before. But this time, I only had to look back at Molly and remember that she needed me. I had to make sure that I got her back to the normal world and her dad.
Oh, God, Michael.
That made me sit down in the snow, but Thomas turned around and stared at me again, and I stood up and made my legs work. Nothing like an older brother to turn the guilt in a different direction.
We came through into the theater, and there was a conversation with Fix and Lily that I honestly don’t remember, and then, the next thing I remember, without much transition, we were in Father Forthill’s. I sat down in a pew and put my head between my hands, trying to think of something other than the shining meltwater Charity had slipped on. The meltwater that wouldn’t have been there if not for me and my fire.
If not for me.
My grief and my guilt were twin wolves, tearing at me like the loup-garou hadn’t quite managed all those years ago. So many chances to change things. If I’d just told Charity no when she started putting the ointment on her eyes, made her stay behind. That probably would have meant I’d have died in combat with the Scarecrow, but at least Charity would still be alive.
Would Molly?
I shuddered and leaned forward until the leather of my duster creaked. I didn’t know, that was the hell of it. I only knew what had happened, and that part was almost intolerable.
But not to you.
Molly hadn’t stopped crying yet. I could hear her, sobbing quietly somewhere off to the side. Forthill was praying with her, or maybe just reading the Bible to her, I wasn’t sure. I’m not good at recognizing the difference between them, since the only time I ever hear the Bible is when I’m involved with Forthill or the Carpenters.
But a few of those words just happened to jump out at me.
“…Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow…”
And who knows—maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was because my starving mind would pounce on any words that might give me a chance at the moment, maybe it was Someone looking out for me in the way that Charity had talked about so much—I felt my breathing slow and steady, and my hands stopped trying to stave my skull in.
Okay. Okay. There were still things I could do. If I was responsible for Charity’s death, then the best thing to do was make up for it.
Michael and his family were going to need a lot of help. Molly was still in danger from the Council, and a danger to herself. Michael was going to be…I didn’t have words for what this news would do to him. The younger children would miss their mother. Winter might try to get vengeance on them for what we’d done to Arctis Tor. Hell, Titania might try that, too, once she worked out what Lily and Fix had done to help us.
I could be there. I could help lift Michael from where he had fallen, and Molly, too. It was something real and solid to do, something that didn’t involve dying myself—which wouldn’t really solve anything, I knew—or allowing Molly to die or spending the rest of my life trying to avoid the memory of what I’d done.
I lifted my head, listening for the moment when Father Forthill stopped reading. I had to go over there and talk to Molly. Not explain everything, not yet. She was still missing her mother.
I think Harry's guilt makes sense, given that he was the inadvertent cause of Charity slipping. (Even if he hadn't been, of course, he would probably blame himself). And it is going to give him all the stronger motive to work with and for Michael's family.
And right now, at least, I'm inspired to write a whole lot more of this story.
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timeasmymeasure
Fill, 1/?: Rejoice in Thy Labor
Date: 2011-03-27 12:40 am (UTC)--------------------------------------------------
It was my fault.
I’ve said that so many times before, but I’ve never said it like this.
I reached for her. I know I reached for her. I’d melted the ice with my fire, I understood I couldn’t run on it, so I lay there and extended my staff to Charity when she was about to fall and she ought to have been able to grab onto it and she ought to have been safe, damnit.
But she reached for the staff, and that cost her the hold she did have. She fell.
I snapped out my hand, but it was too little, too late. I tried to call for wind, but my voice was a croak. I felt a breeze whip past my head, but it couldn’t save Charity.
No, put the blame where it belongs, Harry.
I couldn’t save her.
I closed my eyes and lay there for a moment, and then I whirled up and around, because I was damned if I was going to lose Molly. Charity had come all this way, she had risked it all, to save her baby girl. I hurried over to Molly and grabbed her, muttering words that I couldn’t even hear, pushing so much will into them that Molly started shivering as if she had a fever in a second, because I’d overheated her.
Then I saw her face.
I had to look away.
“Mom?” she whispered, and I saw her from the corner of my eye reaching up to rub at her face, as if she could change things if she just looked at them differently.
Oh, I thought, as my heart gave a limp, painful beat and then just sat there and hurt. This is what your heart breaking feels like.
I could have lived without knowing that.
--------------------------------------------------
Somehow, we got everyone out. And Thomas got Charity’s body. He clambered down from the parapet to pick her up. He wouldn’t let me carry her, even though I wanted to. He gave me a vampire look when I tried, and jerked his head at Molly.
I got it, right. Comfort the girl. She’s the one who’s still alive.
Murphy stayed close to Molly, too, but she didn’t say anything. She just made sure that she was always in some sort of contact with Molly, even when we were running away from Arctis Tor and the Winter fae that came charging in. A hand on her shoulder, an elbow resting against her side, the brush of a finger against a cheek. Molly, even sobbing, seemed to know that Murphy was there, and she went with her quietly, tamely.
I was glad they were there. I couldn’t have come back, and neither could Molly, without them.
When I say “couldn’t have come back,” I mean it. There was a moment, when I was facing the Winter fae, when I really wanted to charge ahead and just risk it all in a hopeless fight, not trying to defend myself, giving in and giving up.
Guilt can kill. I’ve almost let it have me, before. But this time, I only had to look back at Molly and remember that she needed me. I had to make sure that I got her back to the normal world and her dad.
Oh, God, Michael.
That made me sit down in the snow, but Thomas turned around and stared at me again, and I stood up and made my legs work. Nothing like an older brother to turn the guilt in a different direction.
We came through into the theater, and there was a conversation with Fix and Lily that I honestly don’t remember, and then, the next thing I remember, without much transition, we were in Father Forthill’s. I sat down in a pew and put my head between my hands, trying to think of something other than the shining meltwater Charity had slipped on. The meltwater that wouldn’t have been there if not for me and my fire.
If not for me.
My grief and my guilt were twin wolves, tearing at me like the loup-garou hadn’t quite managed all those years ago. So many chances to change things. If I’d just told Charity no when she started putting the ointment on her eyes, made her stay behind. That probably would have meant I’d have died in combat with the Scarecrow, but at least Charity would still be alive.
Would Molly?
I shuddered and leaned forward until the leather of my duster creaked. I didn’t know, that was the hell of it. I only knew what had happened, and that part was almost intolerable.
But not to you.
Molly hadn’t stopped crying yet. I could hear her, sobbing quietly somewhere off to the side. Forthill was praying with her, or maybe just reading the Bible to her, I wasn’t sure. I’m not good at recognizing the difference between them, since the only time I ever hear the Bible is when I’m involved with Forthill or the Carpenters.
But a few of those words just happened to jump out at me.
“…Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow…”
And who knows—maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was because my starving mind would pounce on any words that might give me a chance at the moment, maybe it was Someone looking out for me in the way that Charity had talked about so much—I felt my breathing slow and steady, and my hands stopped trying to stave my skull in.
Okay. Okay. There were still things I could do. If I was responsible for Charity’s death, then the best thing to do was make up for it.
Michael and his family were going to need a lot of help. Molly was still in danger from the Council, and a danger to herself. Michael was going to be…I didn’t have words for what this news would do to him. The younger children would miss their mother. Winter might try to get vengeance on them for what we’d done to Arctis Tor. Hell, Titania might try that, too, once she worked out what Lily and Fix had done to help us.
I could be there. I could help lift Michael from where he had fallen, and Molly, too. It was something real and solid to do, something that didn’t involve dying myself—which wouldn’t really solve anything, I knew—or allowing Molly to die or spending the rest of my life trying to avoid the memory of what I’d done.
I lifted my head, listening for the moment when Father Forthill stopped reading. I had to go over there and talk to Molly. Not explain everything, not yet. She was still missing her mother.
But explain enough, and help, and work.
Re: Fill, 1/?: Rejoice in Thy Labor
Date: 2011-03-27 12:49 am (UTC)You are going to make me cry, I know it.
Re: Fill, 1/?: Rejoice in Thy Labor
Date: 2011-03-28 01:59 am (UTC)Or will be. I think a lot of characters here need them.
Re: Fill, 1/?: Rejoice in Thy Labor
Date: 2011-03-27 06:49 am (UTC)Oh.
Oh, nonnie. Oh, Harry. Of course he'd give everything he has to make amends.
This is beautiful and painful in every way that makes me want to see more. Please?
Re: Fill, 1/?: Rejoice in Thy Labor
Date: 2011-03-28 02:00 am (UTC)I think Harry's guilt makes sense, given that he was the inadvertent cause of Charity slipping. (Even if he hadn't been, of course, he would probably blame himself). And it is going to give him all the stronger motive to work with and for Michael's family.
And right now, at least, I'm inspired to write a whole lot more of this story.
Re: Fill, 1/?: Rejoice in Thy Labor
Date: 2011-03-27 03:06 pm (UTC)It hurts, and it's SO Harry, and, God. You win, forever. Whoa...
Re: Fill, 1/?: Rejoice in Thy Labor
Date: 2011-03-28 02:01 am (UTC)Harry is going to screw up sometimes in this story, because that's what Harry does. But he is also going to try, so hard.