Fic: Days Like This
Jan. 9th, 2010 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
galaxysoupFANDOM: Torchwood
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Alice’s mother told her there would be days like this.
SPOILERS: Children of Earth
DISCLAIMER: On a scale of One to Not Mine, these characters are Not Mine. They belong to a lot of terribly important and official people who work for big companies and get salaries and basically aren’t me. Suing me for copyright infringement would be pointless and unprofitable, I swear. A weevil once bit my sister.
ETA: This has been remixed by the intimidatingly talented be_themoon, here: Here's A Girl From A Dangerous Town (the Unbroken Heart Remix). Go and read it - it's amazing!
Days Like This
“The thing you have to understand about your father, sweetheart,” Alice’s mother says as she brushes her daughter’s hair back from her forehead, “is that he loves you so, so much, and he is so proud of you. Never doubt that.”
Alice smiles and snuggles further down in the blankets. She loves her mother when she’s like this, close and warm and affectionate instead of hard and bright.
Her mother smooths one hand down the side of her face. “He loves you,” she repeats softly, her voice taking on an edge, “but he’s going to break your heart one day. He won’t want to and he’ll feel bad about it, but he’ll do it.”
Alice shrinks into herself a little. This is the other side of her mother, the ruthless face-the-facts fiery part that wants to prepare Alice for a terrible, ugly world that Alice would prefer not to know about. She doesn’t like this mother. Other mothers tell their daughters they’re beautiful and let them take dance lessons and art classes. Alice’s mother tells her to stand up straight and keep her eyes open, and takes her to karate and survival training.
By the time Alice is a teenager, she can kind of appreciate the way her mother’s raised her. She knows how to spot trouble and steer clear of it, she can locate the major nerve centers on most humanoid creatures and target them, and when Ricky Moss tries to stick his hand up her shirt when they’re fifteen, she leaves him gurgling on the pavement and knows her mother will be proud of her. Other girls, the ones whose mothers teach them to be graceful and proper, steer clear of her.
She still doesn’t understand her mother’s warning about her father. He’s not around as often as she’d like, it’s true, but every time he comes to see her she loves him a little bit more anyway. He’s loud and boisterous and affectionate and he seems to make everything brighter just by being around. He teaches her about the fun parts of life, the benefits of being impractical and frivolous, and when Ricky Moss dumps her when she’s seventeen, he holds her while she cries and then turns on Big Band music and teaches her to swing dance.
Every time her father leaves, blowing kisses and acting up to make her laugh, her mother stares after him with a fond, exasperated expression and for a moment Alice thinks she’s going to hear one of the rare, coveted memories associated with the early whirlwind days of their relationship.
And then her mother shakes her head, looks at Alice a little sternly, and says “Remember this moment, sweetheart. He’ll break your heart one day and it will help to have this to look back on.”
Alice is so used to this sentiment that she hardly even hears it any more. She rolls her eyes and goes to her room to play Big Band as loudly as she dares.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Her father can’t come to her wedding. By this point it’s become pretty clear to her that he doesn’t age like normal people, which her mother gets unexpectedly tongue-tied trying to explain, so Alice tries to tell herself that his presence would cause more awkwardness than it would ease. She fixes her veil and smooths down her dress, trying not to mind that her father won’t walk her down the aisle, and wonders if this is the moment her mother warned her about, when her father will break her heart.
She considers it carefully. She’s upset, but she’s too happy to be marrying Joe Carter to let it bother her much. Heart still intact, check.
“You look so beautiful,” her mother says, smoothing back a tendril of her hair. She pauses and seems to be debating with herself, and then takes Alice’s face in her hands. “I have one piece of advice to give you, sweetheart, now that you’re going to be starting your own family.”
Alice smiles hopefully, but her mother’s eyes take on that hard, serious expression, and her heart sinks. “Your father would give his life to save you, and if you have kids he’d give his life to save them. But you have to understand something, and this is very, very important: if it came down to a choice between saving you and saving the world, he’d save the world and leave you to die. You can’t count on him, sweetheart. You’ll be better off if he doesn’t have much contact with your family.”
Alice walks down the aisle alone, with her mother’s warning ringing in her ears, and that is her wedding day.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
She thinks about this, a few years later, as she stands over her mother’s grave with Steven’s little hand in hers. She hasn’t had too much contact with her father lately, although that’s more because it’s become increasingly awkward to explain him to Joe than for any real philosophical reasons.
She spots her father standing behind a tree a few meters away and hands Steven off to Joe, asking for a few moments alone. Her father comes over to the grave once they’re gone, and puts one arm around her shoulders, kissing the top of her head. She gives herself a moment, leaning in to his warmth, and then pulls away.
“Mum made me promise something before she died,” Alice says. Her voice breaks a little. “She made me promise to keep Steven safe.”
Her father nods. His eyes are wet with tears and she realises, a little dispassionately, that he really did love her mother.
“She made me promise to keep Steven safe from you.”
He draws back a little in surpise, the hurt clear on his face. Alice turns to face him, staring him in the eyes with the expression she learned from her mother.
“Can you promise me that you will always protect him, no matter what, unconditionally? Can you promise me you’ll keep him safe no matter who else is in danger?”
“I – “ his gaze flickers, just for a moment. Alice looks away, disappointed.
“All right. I see.” She takes a deep breath, and then another, and tries not to feel like she’s buried both of her parents on the same day. “I’d still like you to be part of his life,” she says. She can’t quite meet his eyes, and he can’t quite try to meet hers.
“I’ll... I’ll stop by. When I can,” he says finally.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He doesn’t come to visit when Joe leaves her. She tries to call him and gets someone with a Welsh accent who explains he’s had to go out of the country for a little while. She spends a moment wondering if this is her heart breaking, and then decides it’s just disappointment.
She gets through it by herself. It’s what her mother taught her.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Years later, she crouches in an abandoned warehouse and cradles her son’s bloody, lifeless body. She screams. She doesn’t know if there are words or just noise. None of it brings her baby back.
She finds Jack, sitting in a hallway, staring at the wall. In a detached way she realises he’s grieving too.
She stares at him and thinks, Mum told me this would happen. You’ve finally broken my heart. How could you, you bastard?
I hope you die, she thinks.
I hope you live forever and never forget this.
The words crowd and jam in her throat. There is too much to say for any of it to be said, and she can see in his expression that he hears it anyway.
She remembers swing dancing with him. She remembers him holding her when she was upset, and teaching her to find constellations in the night sky, and making her gin and tonics when she was old enough to drink. She remembers him blowing kisses and acting up just to make her laugh.
Finally, she just walks away. She knows she will never see him again.
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Alice’s mother told her there would be days like this.
SPOILERS: Children of Earth
DISCLAIMER: On a scale of One to Not Mine, these characters are Not Mine. They belong to a lot of terribly important and official people who work for big companies and get salaries and basically aren’t me. Suing me for copyright infringement would be pointless and unprofitable, I swear. A weevil once bit my sister.
ETA: This has been remixed by the intimidatingly talented be_themoon, here: Here's A Girl From A Dangerous Town (the Unbroken Heart Remix). Go and read it - it's amazing!
Days Like This
“The thing you have to understand about your father, sweetheart,” Alice’s mother says as she brushes her daughter’s hair back from her forehead, “is that he loves you so, so much, and he is so proud of you. Never doubt that.”
Alice smiles and snuggles further down in the blankets. She loves her mother when she’s like this, close and warm and affectionate instead of hard and bright.
Her mother smooths one hand down the side of her face. “He loves you,” she repeats softly, her voice taking on an edge, “but he’s going to break your heart one day. He won’t want to and he’ll feel bad about it, but he’ll do it.”
Alice shrinks into herself a little. This is the other side of her mother, the ruthless face-the-facts fiery part that wants to prepare Alice for a terrible, ugly world that Alice would prefer not to know about. She doesn’t like this mother. Other mothers tell their daughters they’re beautiful and let them take dance lessons and art classes. Alice’s mother tells her to stand up straight and keep her eyes open, and takes her to karate and survival training.
By the time Alice is a teenager, she can kind of appreciate the way her mother’s raised her. She knows how to spot trouble and steer clear of it, she can locate the major nerve centers on most humanoid creatures and target them, and when Ricky Moss tries to stick his hand up her shirt when they’re fifteen, she leaves him gurgling on the pavement and knows her mother will be proud of her. Other girls, the ones whose mothers teach them to be graceful and proper, steer clear of her.
She still doesn’t understand her mother’s warning about her father. He’s not around as often as she’d like, it’s true, but every time he comes to see her she loves him a little bit more anyway. He’s loud and boisterous and affectionate and he seems to make everything brighter just by being around. He teaches her about the fun parts of life, the benefits of being impractical and frivolous, and when Ricky Moss dumps her when she’s seventeen, he holds her while she cries and then turns on Big Band music and teaches her to swing dance.
Every time her father leaves, blowing kisses and acting up to make her laugh, her mother stares after him with a fond, exasperated expression and for a moment Alice thinks she’s going to hear one of the rare, coveted memories associated with the early whirlwind days of their relationship.
And then her mother shakes her head, looks at Alice a little sternly, and says “Remember this moment, sweetheart. He’ll break your heart one day and it will help to have this to look back on.”
Alice is so used to this sentiment that she hardly even hears it any more. She rolls her eyes and goes to her room to play Big Band as loudly as she dares.
Her father can’t come to her wedding. By this point it’s become pretty clear to her that he doesn’t age like normal people, which her mother gets unexpectedly tongue-tied trying to explain, so Alice tries to tell herself that his presence would cause more awkwardness than it would ease. She fixes her veil and smooths down her dress, trying not to mind that her father won’t walk her down the aisle, and wonders if this is the moment her mother warned her about, when her father will break her heart.
She considers it carefully. She’s upset, but she’s too happy to be marrying Joe Carter to let it bother her much. Heart still intact, check.
“You look so beautiful,” her mother says, smoothing back a tendril of her hair. She pauses and seems to be debating with herself, and then takes Alice’s face in her hands. “I have one piece of advice to give you, sweetheart, now that you’re going to be starting your own family.”
Alice smiles hopefully, but her mother’s eyes take on that hard, serious expression, and her heart sinks. “Your father would give his life to save you, and if you have kids he’d give his life to save them. But you have to understand something, and this is very, very important: if it came down to a choice between saving you and saving the world, he’d save the world and leave you to die. You can’t count on him, sweetheart. You’ll be better off if he doesn’t have much contact with your family.”
Alice walks down the aisle alone, with her mother’s warning ringing in her ears, and that is her wedding day.
She thinks about this, a few years later, as she stands over her mother’s grave with Steven’s little hand in hers. She hasn’t had too much contact with her father lately, although that’s more because it’s become increasingly awkward to explain him to Joe than for any real philosophical reasons.
She spots her father standing behind a tree a few meters away and hands Steven off to Joe, asking for a few moments alone. Her father comes over to the grave once they’re gone, and puts one arm around her shoulders, kissing the top of her head. She gives herself a moment, leaning in to his warmth, and then pulls away.
“Mum made me promise something before she died,” Alice says. Her voice breaks a little. “She made me promise to keep Steven safe.”
Her father nods. His eyes are wet with tears and she realises, a little dispassionately, that he really did love her mother.
“She made me promise to keep Steven safe from you.”
He draws back a little in surpise, the hurt clear on his face. Alice turns to face him, staring him in the eyes with the expression she learned from her mother.
“Can you promise me that you will always protect him, no matter what, unconditionally? Can you promise me you’ll keep him safe no matter who else is in danger?”
“I – “ his gaze flickers, just for a moment. Alice looks away, disappointed.
“All right. I see.” She takes a deep breath, and then another, and tries not to feel like she’s buried both of her parents on the same day. “I’d still like you to be part of his life,” she says. She can’t quite meet his eyes, and he can’t quite try to meet hers.
“I’ll... I’ll stop by. When I can,” he says finally.
He doesn’t come to visit when Joe leaves her. She tries to call him and gets someone with a Welsh accent who explains he’s had to go out of the country for a little while. She spends a moment wondering if this is her heart breaking, and then decides it’s just disappointment.
She gets through it by herself. It’s what her mother taught her.
Years later, she crouches in an abandoned warehouse and cradles her son’s bloody, lifeless body. She screams. She doesn’t know if there are words or just noise. None of it brings her baby back.
She finds Jack, sitting in a hallway, staring at the wall. In a detached way she realises he’s grieving too.
She stares at him and thinks, Mum told me this would happen. You’ve finally broken my heart. How could you, you bastard?
I hope you die, she thinks.
I hope you live forever and never forget this.
The words crowd and jam in her throat. There is too much to say for any of it to be said, and she can see in his expression that he hears it anyway.
She remembers swing dancing with him. She remembers him holding her when she was upset, and teaching her to find constellations in the night sky, and making her gin and tonics when she was old enough to drink. She remembers him blowing kisses and acting up just to make her laugh.
Finally, she just walks away. She knows she will never see him again.
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Date: 2010-01-09 02:37 pm (UTC)Thank you for sharing it!
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