#wow! just twist this knife a little harder! worst imaginable pain!

[the-girl-who-didnt-smile]

Lost Child, Come Home

[doc-pickles]

won’t let no one break your heart (part six)

we needed SOMETHING after the S17 premiere...

The plane ride to Philadelphia was torturous, to say the least. Jo’s goodbye to Alex at the airport had been harder than she’d anticipated, but she’d steeled her emotions and boarded the plane nonetheless. Her nerves were shot as she anxiously sat through the six hour plane ride, the baby in her stomach flipping and kicking her as if to remind her that she wasn’t alone. 

  She wasn’t sure why she’d chosen to do this, to come out here and find out answers about a woman who hadn’t even attempted to contact her once in her 34 years of life. Deep down Jo thinks that maybe it’s because of her son, that there’s some desperate part of her that needs to understand what her mother had thought about before she holds her own child. But she knows, if she’s honest with herself, that this doesn’t have anything to do with the baby in her womb. No this trip, this mental cage that she’d locked herself in, had everything to do with the two little girls who were no longer sleeping down the hallway from her and Alex. 

  Jo had always absently wondered why her mother had left her, but she’d never had the urge to track her down and demand answers. In her head, she’d painted a picture of a young desperate girl with no other options than abandoning her week old daughter at a fire station. She’d been content to leave it at that, to let her story end there. But as she’d stood on her front porch a week ago and watched Sadie and Molly leave, she knew she needed answers. If it physically pained her to let go of the girls who weren’t her own flesh and blood, how had her mother done what she had?

  The plane touches down in Philadelphia bright and early on Saturday morning, giving Jo enough time to go to her hotel for a shower and a change of clothes before tracking her mother down. Her body is aching, she knows she should rest and let herself recover from the long flight but she can’t. She needs to know. So she presses her fingers against her stomach in an attempt to calm the little boy doing somersaults inside of her and punches in the address that Parker had found for her into her GPS. 

  The house is nicer than she’d expected, two newer cars parked in the driveway of the two story home. Jo pushes any fear she still holds aside as she walks up the drive and rings the doorbell. It isn’t long before a young girl, high school aged maybe, answers the door. Jo has to hold her breath for a moment, noticing the similarities between her and the teenager standing before her. The girl, however, is unfazed as she stares quizzically at Jo, “Can I help you?”

  “Umm yes,” Jo snaps out of her daze, eyes meeting the girls. “I’m looking for Vicki Rudin. Is she here? I mean, am I in the right place?” “Lexie, who’s at the door,” a middle aged woman appears behind the teenager, eyes widening as she takes Jo in. “Go upstairs, Alexandra.” Lexie, or Alexandra, seems to not want to argue as she silently leaves the entryway. Vicki steps onto the porch, closing the door behind her as she turns to Jo, “What are you doing here?”

  “So you know who I am then?” “Of course I do, you look just like…,” Vicki looks over Jo, moving her gaze away quickly as she shakes her head. “Why are you here?”

  Jo’s put off by the abrasive tone in Vicki’s voice, if anyone should be mad here it should be her, “I just wanted to talk. Can we do that? Talk?” “Not here,” Vicki’s eyes scan her surroundings, as if someone is watching her every movement. “There’s a diner, a few blocks away. I’ll meet you there if you really want to talk.” “Well I didn’t just fly out here from Seattle for my health, I can think of about a thousand other things to do with my limited free time,” the tone that Jo bites back with is bitter, eyes narrowing at the woman in front of her. “Fine, I’ll meet you there.” She walks back to her car, her worry and fear now replaced with anger and annoyance towards the woman she’d just met. She pulls her phone out, seeing a text from Alex:

10:38 AM

Hope you two are doing okay. I love you.

  Even when she’d pushed her husband away, when she’d shut him out of her thoughts and feelings, he was still checking in on her and caring for her. She sends back a quick reply before pulling off the suburban street and heading to the diner Vicki had mentioned. The retro theming and aging waitresses reminds her of the restaurant downtown that Sadie and Molly loved to go to, where they’d beg Alex for quarters to play old songs on the Jukebox. The thought brings a small smile to Jo’s face as she settles into a table, ordering a hot tea from a waitress who stops by. 

  Vicki walks in fifteen minutes later, eyes immediately falling to Jo and sliding into the seat across from her. She orders a coffee, fixing it with cream and sugar before she dares to speak up, “I'm late for work. Um... I work in the mayor's office. Try to create jobs for under-served communities.” The answer feels like a knife twisting in Jo’s chest as she watches the woman sitting across from her nervously twist her golden wedding bands. The gems on them are large and she wears a few more rings across her hands. Her nails are painted a dark blue, professionally done. These touches along with the suburban dream house and the fancy job all paint a picture Jo had never entertained. 

  “You know, in my head, you worked at a diner half as nice as this. And you didn't graduate high school, or maybe you did but a year or two late because they don't let pregnant girls finish high school,” her hand instinctively falls to her own pregnant belly. Her son kicks at her hand, as if encouraging her to keep going. “And you scraped by somehow on... hard work and the kindness of strangers, but you had no one. You had nothing.”

  “That would make it okay that I left you,” Vicki’s voice sounds hopeful as she stares at Jo. “I wanted you to have a better life than I could give you…”

  “Nothing makes it okay,” Jo snapped. Her eyes light with a fire she didn’t know she was capable of feeling as she looks at the woman she’d pictured her whole life. “You know, I didn't have a better life. I wasn't better off. No one found me adoring parents who were dying for a newborn of their own to love. I lived in foster homes so bad, it was better to live in my car. And when a man finally told me that he loved me, I believed him, even when he beat the crap out of me so bad I couldn't see. So whatever life you had, tell me it wasn't better than mine.”

  Vicki stares at her blankly and for a moment Jo doesn’t think she’s going to speak again, “You look just like me. You look… so much like the vision of myself that I had to look at for nine months and loathe.”

  Jo reads between the lines of Vicki’s statement, fingers curling against her expanding abdomen protectively. Finally a picture begins to form in her head, one that paints a woman who couldn’t love their own child but didn’t have the courage to help them begin their life on the right foot, “Wow. You're just a monster, huh?”

  “You don’t understand, you never would,” Vicki gestures vaguely to the silver bands on Jo’s left hand, her eyes narrowing as she brings them to meet hers again. “You probably have a supportive husband at home who holds your hand when you go to your doctor’s appointments. You don’t have to feel fear or regret or anger everytime you go to see your baby.”

  The anger in Jo builds, it rises up her throat as she and Vicki hold each other’s stares. She couldn’t believe that this woman was talking about her baby, about Jo herself, like this, “It wasn’t enough to abandon me, you just have to rub the pain in huh?”

  “Your father… he was a monster. You weren’t created from some magic moment of love, you’re here because some piece of scum didn’t understand the word ‘no’ as I screamed it over and over again while he forced himself on me,” Vicki takes a deep breath in, her own eyes welling with tears as she focused her gaze on her hands. “I was petrified every single moment of my pregnancy. I was so terrified... imagining that you'd be a boy and that you'd have his face and his voice. And every day, every kick, every movement, it just reminded me where you came from.” Jo’s heart drops so quickly that she feels as if she can’t breathe. Her own little boy kicks about in her womb, the feeling now foreign as she tries to make sense of what Vicki is saying. She’d never imagined, never entertained the thought that she was the product of sexual assault. But here was the reality of it all, slapping her in the face so harshly she almost felt as if her cheek stung. 

  “But, you know, movies and books and... and magazines, they just kept talking about this...love that you feel the minute your baby is born. How instantaneous it is and how your heart just cracks wide open, and... I remember, I kept telling myself that as soon as I had you in my arms that I could do that and that I would do that. Other women did it, so why couldn't I,” Vicki lets a chuckle out then, the sound like nails on a chalkboard as her voice takes on a spiteful tone. “But it never did. No, it did… Everything they said was absolutely right. My heart cracked wide open. It was never just us, no matter how hard I tried, no matter what I did. It was just a reminder of him and I resented you… so much for it. I think I still do, looking at you now and seeing him in your eyes, seeing you… like that and reminding me of the worst nine months of my life.”

  The anger that had been on a slow boil in her chest now erupted as Jo spat at the woman across from her, “No you don’t get to say that, to blame whatever fucked up problems you have on me. You don’t get to blame an innocent child for what happened to you.”

  “I did the best I could…”

  “Bullshit, the best you could would've been to find an adoption agency and make sure I had a home and someone to love me, not toss me away like garbage,” Jo eyes Vicki before taking a breath and meeting her eyes. “I spent most of my life doubting everyone I ever met, leaving them before they could leave me. I am a grown woman with a job that I love and friends I love and a husband who loves me so much and a son and still... I was walking around, waiting, wondering if you would ever find me. If you would ever say that you're sorry. I don’t need that though, I can tell you’re not sorry for what you did.”

  “I did the best I could,” the words have lost their meaning as they tumble out of Vicki’s mouth again. “I couldn’t look at you, I still can’t, but I tried to give you the best I could.”

  “No you didn’t! I came here because I spent so many nights laying awake wondering how someone could throw their own flesh and blood to the side like you have, wondering how it was possible when…,” Jo swipes at her eyes, her mind bringing up visions of blonde curls and bright green eyes. “It didn’t make sense that you could do that to me when I would give anything for the little girls I have back in Seattle that aren’t even mine. I couldn’t comprehend how you could do that to your own daughter when I would die for two that aren’t even my own.”

  A silence settled over Jo and Vicki, Jo’s mind racing as she thought about Sadie and Molly. They were the reason she’d come out here, to see her mother’s perspective on the beginning of her life in a light that she couldn’t envision herself. Sitting her now though, Jo knew the truth once and for all. She would never be able to understand giving your child up, circumstances be damned. 

  “You didn’t do anything for me. I have gone my whole life thinking that you leaving me was the only thing you could’ve done, that you had no other option but I was... so wrong,” Jo stands then, fed up with Vicki and the bullshit excuses she keeps feeding her. “I am nothing like you, everything I am I built myself. I am a loving wife and a good friend and... and I am a mother. A damn good one, better than you will ever be. And I’m going to fly home and lay in bed next to my husband in the house that I worked so hard for and pray that I never make my children feel the way that you made me feel.”

  Jo walks away, stopping a few feet away and turning back to stand in front of Vicki with her head held high, “Since you never bothered to ask, my name is Josephine. Doctor Josephine Karev and I know now that my life is so much better without you in it.”

  She barely remembers to stop at her hotel and grab her suitcase, her mind a blur as she drives to the airport and rebooks her flight. By the time she lands in Seattle it’s pushing 10 PM, Jo hailing a cab and heading home as soon as she’s collected her baggage. She had been so angry, so upset with the woman who she shared half her DNA with as she fled Philadelphia. Now though, standing on the front porch of her and Alex’s home, she was sad and exhausted and all she wanted was her husband. 

  Unlocking the front door, Jo pushed herself into the living room with the last bit of energy she had, a sigh leaving her as she leaned against the front door. She was shocked to see most of the lights on, assuming Alex was already in bed. 

  “Jo?” Alex moves from his position at the top of the stairs, his feet taking the stairs two at a time as he realizes that Jo is actually standing in front of him. Jo hadn’t realized she’d been crying until Alex was standing in front of her wiping at the tears that had collected on her cheeks. 

  “I am so sorry that I’ve been such a terrible wife,” Jo’s voice cracks as she meets Alex’s eyes, a sad expression on his face. “I should’ve just talked to you instead of freaking out but I thought… I thought going out there would give me closure or answers or… something. But it didn’t, it just showed me that I came from two horrible humans. And I know that I’m nothing like them but… 

  “I just sat across from her and listened to her tell me that what she did was what she thought was best for me and all I could think about was how I could never do that to our son,” Jo takes a deep breath, tears flowing down her face again as she struggles to speak. “And then I thought about doing that to Sadie and Molly and I couldn’t stomach the thought of it, of never seeing them again. And that’s when I realized that I’m a better person because I didn’t know her. It just… took me a long time to realize that.”

  Alex wraps Jo in his arms, letting her finally let out the emotions she’d been trying to conceal since she’d walked out of the diner.

  “I’m sorry things didn’t pan out like you’d wanted them to,” Alex’s lips pressed against her forehead as she reigned in her emotions, wiping at her cheeks to clear her tears. His hand wandered down to her bump, cradling it as he smiled down at her. “For the record, I think you’re already a fantastic mom.”

  “And for the record, you were right about Sadie and Molly,” Jo hesitantly met Alex’s eyes, a smirk already pasted across his face. “They belong here, with us. So we can call Martha and tell her that, because if there’s one thing that the past 24 hours has shown me it’s that I can’t imagine us without them now.” Alex wrapped an arm around Jo, ushering her upstairs, “Well we can call first thing tomorrow morning. For now, you two need to get to bed.” Jo was thrown off by Alex’s nonchalant response for a moment until they stepped into their bedroom. She turned to him with a smirk of her own, “You are a very sneaky man, did you know that?”

“Mama!” “Mommy!”

  “Oh I am so glad to see you two,” Jo settled herself onto the edge of their bed as Sadie and Molly both clambering onto her lap. “I missed you so much.” “Martha dropped them off this morning, they kept asking for us,” Alex rubbed the back of his neck in a nervous gesture. “I was gonna call but I knew you were busy. But I figured you wouldn’t mind them coming back.” “Does this mean we get to stay forever? Does it,” Sadie’s innocent question brought tears to Jo’s eyes again, this round welcome as she stared down at the little girls sitting on her lap. 

“Do you want that? To stay here forever with us?” Both girls responded with a chorus of yeses, Alex and Jo’s eyes meeting over their heads. They exchanged a look before Jo turned back to the girls with a smile, “I think we can make that work.”

[soft-femagines]

Once Friends

FE Three Houses Drabble

Word count: 1,454

   “Teach... what should we do?”

   Claude’s voice rang out besides you, snapping you into the reality of the situation.

   An army, clad in gold, standing with you.

   An army, garbed with blue, ahead of you.

   An army, soaked in crimson, in a steadfast march. They would arrive in moments.

   You focus your gaze on the man standing a few paces in front of you, carrying a spine-chilling spear.

   “Dmitri!” You called his name. He flinched, ever so slightly, so small you may have imagined it. Was the Dmitri you used to know still in there? “What happened to you?”

   “I think the real question here,” he growled, “is what happened to you? Ever since you’ve decided to prance around with those Deer, you’ve gone soft.” He spat out the word ‘deer’. “I do not intend to hold hands and make friends while we are being oppressed. Justice must be obtained, and we will be the ones to take it!”

   A cool voice broke in, “Is that really how you see things, Dmitri? I would’ve thought you were smarter than this.” Edelgard and her army had arrived. “You know, it really is such a shame. Years ago, we stood here as classmates”, she sighed, “But now, you choose to stand in my way. All of you.” Her eyes trailed towards you and Claude. “And if you wish to achieve something, then it must be taken by force.”

   “As big class reunions go,” Claude shook his head, a heavy-hearted smile on his face, “This one’s got to be the worst in history.”

   ‘How did it come to this?’

   You heeded your surroundings, and your heart shattered. These were your beloved students, your family. You had fought beside, argued, and laughed with these students. You did everything together. And now, they were about to slaughter each other, with you at the heart of this twisted battlefield.

   The tension in the air held a vice grip around your throat. A slight creaking to your right told you Claude was drawing his bow. You opened your mouth for one last hopeless attempt at negotia-

   "Enough”, Dmitri split the silence, driving his spear into the air. “Soldiers, our time is now! Justice will be ours! KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!”

   “For the Adrestrian Empire!” Edelgard roared, urging her army to charge with her axe lifted into the air.

   You gasped, drawing in a breath you didn’t know you were holding. You shook yourself back to your senses. “Forces, Charge! Put a stop to this madness!”

   Metal clashed before you, arrows flying, blood splattering, fallen bodies being stepped over as the three armies collided. Screams of pain pierced into your heart from every side. War is so ugly. You incapacitate one enemy after another, trying not to look too closely at their faces. ‘I’m such a coward’, you thought. ‘I can’t even look my own students in the eyes while I’m cutting them down.’  

   Amidst the chaos, you see Dmitri, mercilessly thrusting his lance into anyone foolish enough to get to close. His eyes meet yours, his face harder than stone. He begins making his way towards you through the sea of bodies and steel. ‘I’ll have to face him head on, maybe I can get through to him!’

   He lunged towards you, his lance making a path to your chest. You deflected, startled by its ferocity. He was really trying to kill you. He stabbed at you again and again, and each time you deflected. Your arms burned. “Dmitri, you don’t have to do this! We can talk this out!”

   “It’s too late for that now!” He bellowed. “If you wanted to suck up to me, you should’ve done it five years ago!”

   You grit your teeth. “Damnit man! We used to be friends!”

   “Used to be, yes. But I refuse to be friends with one who stands by and serves our oppressors!”

   The crowd around you was already thinning, as soldiers dropped one by one. The battle wouldn’t last much longer. You were getting desperate to find a way to stop the fighting.

   “Dmitri, ENOUGH!” ‘Why am I doing this...’ “I won’t fight you anymore!” You threw your weapon down.

   This caught him off gaurd. “What are you doing?”

   “We want the same thing; for peace throughout Fódlan. It’s..” Your breath caught in your throat, desperation slipping into your voice. “It’s not right for us to be killing each other like this. Don’t you see? This is what the higher ups want; for us to wipe each other out so that there’s no one left to oppose them!”

   Dmitri’s eyes wavered. He is still in there!

   “Please, Dmitri! Just listen to me, listen to reason!” It was all you could do to keep yourself from bursting into tears.

   “You... Believe so?” He warily lowered his spear.

   “I know so.” You extended your hand. “Come with us, Dmitri. We’re on the same side!”

   Moments passed as though they were hours. The chaos around you had calmed; every eye was on the two of you, waiting to see if he would take your hand, ending the fighting.

   More excruciating seconds passed. Your heart was damn near escaping your chest. Finally, after the most painful staring contest you’ve ever been a part of, Dmitri threw down his lance, and strode forwards.

   Relief washed over you, the sickening tension and fear that had previously taken hold of you. Your face split into a smile, as Dmitri took your hand, accepting your offering of peace. Wow his grip is tight!

   ...A little too tight.

   You tried to pull your hand away. He held on, his grip made of iron. Panic started to wash over you. You couldn’t reach your sword. You didn’t have any other weapons!

   He pulled a knife from his cloak with his free hand and brought it over his head, his eyes pieces of ice.

   “I don’t make deals with traitors.”

   He brought the knife down. You caught his wrist, barely, and desperately tried to keep its gleaming tip from reaching your chest, but it was futile. You looked into his eyes, and were shocked to find that they had tears in them. He didn’t want this either. The knife shook, inching ever closer to your chest. You couldn’t move.

   “It doesn’t have to be this way, Dmitri, please!” You were begging for your life. He didn’t respond, only pushing down harder than before. A sharp, burning pain in your chest told you that the knife had begun to dig in.

   This was it; this was how you were going to die. Begging and pleading at the hands of a former friend. ‘Why did it turn out like this?’

   You felt something hot splatter onto your face. Your vision went red. The grip on your hand was released, the knife in your chest stopped pushing. Dmitri’s eyes widened; there was an arrow in his neck. He stumbled back, releasing you, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. You fell backwards. He dropped to his knees, his hand reaching for his neck.

   “Y-you...” Whatever he was trying to say, he didn’t finish it. He collapsed to the ground.

   You felt footsteps to your right. A hand reached out in front of you. You didn’t take it; you were too shocked, you couldn’t take your eyes off Dmitri.

   He was your student. Your friend. And now? He was gone.

   “C’mon, teach, stand up.” Claude gently grabbed your hand, pulling you to your feet on unsteady legs. “I’m sorry for what I did. But he was killing you, and it was the only way...”

   Tears welled up in your eyes. You couldn’t believe it. There was no way that one of your closest friends was lying dead on the ground in front of you, it couldn’t be true!

   The dam inside of you snapped. You started sobbing, tears pouring out for your lost friend.

   Claude didn’t say anything, just wrapped an arm around your shoulder and turned his face away. ‘Is he crying too?’

   The Blue Lions were retreating. They no longer had anyone to follow. The Black Eagles were nowhere to be found; they must’ve retreated earlier.

   One of your own soldiers shouted for your attention. “Should we give chase?”

   Claude answered, “No. We’ve lost enough. We’re going back to base.”

   You didn’t object. The reality of the situation stopped you cold. You had just murdered the ruler of the Kingdom of Faerghus. War was imminent. thousands upon thousands of lives are about to be lost, and it’s your fault. Your heart sunk even further than it already was. You drew in a shaky breath, and began the trek back to base. This was only the beginning of a long, blood soaked path.