Faded Memories
Title: Faded Memories
Author: spunkiegal aka Lauren
Band/Pairing: MCR, Mikey/OFC, kind of Gerard/OFC
Rating: PG
Summary: AU based on The Ghost of You. OFC writes one last letter to Mikey. Read, and you'll see.
Author's Notes: I've had writer's block for months, so this probably doesn't sound as good as it could. Enjoy, and comment, please. I love to know what you think.
Faded Memories
Even now, after all these years, when I see the pictures, the memories are as clear as day.
Here’s the class picture in which you pulled my pigtails to make me grimace at the camera. If only the photographer had taken the picture seconds later, he would have caught me in a very un-ladylike position: socking you a good one to the cheek. That was the beginning of our friendship.
Here are the broken glasses I wrapped up and kept after I knocked some sense into the bully who broke them, just because you preferred to sit and read rather than play sports.
Here is your Phantom decoder ring, the one you thought you lost on the school play yard. You didn’t lose it, Mikey dear, I stole it. And I kept it under my pillow for years afterward to remind me of you. I suppose you never knew that all that time when I said I didn’t like boys, it was really because you were the only one on my mind. And you still are, after all this time.
You, dearest Mikey, Gerard and I were the best of friends, the three musketeers, as our parents called us. No matter what, if one of us was somewhere, getting into trouble, the other two were around as well. It was fairly unorthodox for two boys and a girl to be as close as we were, but we didn’t care what anyone else thought. We were happy in our trio.
Gerard, being the oldest, often went off on his own to practice his art, leaving the two of us behind, but even without him, we had grand adventures, exploring the woods behind our houses, reading books and comics, listening to the radio and ignoring the world.
That turned difficult once we were teenagers, with the war in Europe escalating. When Gerard got drafted at 22, as he was finishing college, we huddled together in the treehouse and cried, scared at the thought of losing our brother, yours by blood, mine by proxy.
It was then that we confessed that our feelings of friendship towards one another had changed into something more. It was then that we realized that somewhere along the way, we had fallen in love. It was that night that we shared our first kiss, so tender and awkward. I have never forgotten. Nor have I forgotten the not-so-chaste kisses and nights spent in each other's impassioned embrace. At that time, it was looked down upon to have sex before marriage, but I think we both knew that eventually, you would be drafted too, and so, the fear of becoming social outcasts didn’t frighten us, we just did what our hearts told us to do.
It was 3 days after your 18th birthday that you proposed to me, telling me there was no one else you could ever imagine yourself being with for the rest of your life. I accepted, of course, and we were happy for the moment. But our happiness was short-lived, because the day after that, your draft papers came in the mail.
I begged you to find any way you could to stay with me, but you shook those pleas off. You had to do this, it was your duty as a good American. But during our last nights together, lying in each other’s arms, you promised me that you would return. You promised that the minute you got back, we would be married and we could start our life together.
I believed you, Mikey. I had every confidence that you would come back to me someday, I believed that you would be safe, that my love would keep you going. How wrong I was.
We sent letters back and forth as much as we could. I waited patiently for your replies to arrive, and I was filled with joy when they did.
You talked about training, making new friends, how much you thought of me, loved me, missed me and wanted to be back in my arms. You wrote about graduating, being shipped off to France and being reunited with Gerard, who sent his regards. You even wrote of the atrocities you saw, even though you thought I might be scared reading those letters. What you didn’t know is that I was always scared for you, scared that one day, I wouldn’t get a reply. Or even worse, that one day your parents and I would get the dreaded telegram saying you were never coming home.
How terrible it was when no replies came, no matter how much I wrote to you. What a tragedy it was the day that the officer came knocking at your mother’s door with the dreaded telegram letting us know how sorry the army was to tell us that you, our beloved Michael James Way, was gone forever. Never coming home. Never coming home. Those are the words that kept repeating in my head.
I spent weeks in bed after that. So sad, emotionally broken. I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. I wanted one last chance to be with you, no matter how much I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I wanted to die, Mikey, so I could meet you again in Heaven.
The only reason I got out of that bed and went on living was Gerard. He’d seen you die on that beach, and he was traumatized. The Army sent him home early, and the first person he came to see after his family was me. We sat on my bed, holding each other and sobbing.
He was my rock, and I was his. He understood my pain, and I understood his, and together, our emotional wounds healed. It was 8 months after he came home that Gerard proposed to me. And I accepted. I never loved him as much as I loved you, and I think somewhere deep inside, he knew that, but I loved Gerard in my own way.
We had a long, happy life together, Gerard and I. We traveled and had children, we watched them grow up and have children, and some of those children have children of their own now. We did all the things that you promised me we would do together. I have every belief that somewhere up in Heaven, you watch over us and you are happy that we were happy. I thank you for that, Mikey, for being our guardian angel.
Gerard passed on last winter, and yes, I was sad, but I knew that he met up with you again, and you two are watching over me as I speak, watching over and taking care of your Allie.
Tonight, Mikey, we will meet again. I know that tomorrow when the sun rises, I will have passed on in my sleep, but that thought doesn’t scare me, because I welcome the moment we are reunited. I have always and will always love you, Mikey dearest, and I cannot wait to be in your arms again. So now I say my goodnight to the world and I find my way back to you.
Author: spunkiegal aka Lauren
Band/Pairing: MCR, Mikey/OFC, kind of Gerard/OFC
Rating: PG
Summary: AU based on The Ghost of You. OFC writes one last letter to Mikey. Read, and you'll see.
Author's Notes: I've had writer's block for months, so this probably doesn't sound as good as it could. Enjoy, and comment, please. I love to know what you think.
Faded Memories
Even now, after all these years, when I see the pictures, the memories are as clear as day.
Here’s the class picture in which you pulled my pigtails to make me grimace at the camera. If only the photographer had taken the picture seconds later, he would have caught me in a very un-ladylike position: socking you a good one to the cheek. That was the beginning of our friendship.
Here are the broken glasses I wrapped up and kept after I knocked some sense into the bully who broke them, just because you preferred to sit and read rather than play sports.
Here is your Phantom decoder ring, the one you thought you lost on the school play yard. You didn’t lose it, Mikey dear, I stole it. And I kept it under my pillow for years afterward to remind me of you. I suppose you never knew that all that time when I said I didn’t like boys, it was really because you were the only one on my mind. And you still are, after all this time.
You, dearest Mikey, Gerard and I were the best of friends, the three musketeers, as our parents called us. No matter what, if one of us was somewhere, getting into trouble, the other two were around as well. It was fairly unorthodox for two boys and a girl to be as close as we were, but we didn’t care what anyone else thought. We were happy in our trio.
Gerard, being the oldest, often went off on his own to practice his art, leaving the two of us behind, but even without him, we had grand adventures, exploring the woods behind our houses, reading books and comics, listening to the radio and ignoring the world.
That turned difficult once we were teenagers, with the war in Europe escalating. When Gerard got drafted at 22, as he was finishing college, we huddled together in the treehouse and cried, scared at the thought of losing our brother, yours by blood, mine by proxy.
It was then that we confessed that our feelings of friendship towards one another had changed into something more. It was then that we realized that somewhere along the way, we had fallen in love. It was that night that we shared our first kiss, so tender and awkward. I have never forgotten. Nor have I forgotten the not-so-chaste kisses and nights spent in each other's impassioned embrace. At that time, it was looked down upon to have sex before marriage, but I think we both knew that eventually, you would be drafted too, and so, the fear of becoming social outcasts didn’t frighten us, we just did what our hearts told us to do.
It was 3 days after your 18th birthday that you proposed to me, telling me there was no one else you could ever imagine yourself being with for the rest of your life. I accepted, of course, and we were happy for the moment. But our happiness was short-lived, because the day after that, your draft papers came in the mail.
I begged you to find any way you could to stay with me, but you shook those pleas off. You had to do this, it was your duty as a good American. But during our last nights together, lying in each other’s arms, you promised me that you would return. You promised that the minute you got back, we would be married and we could start our life together.
I believed you, Mikey. I had every confidence that you would come back to me someday, I believed that you would be safe, that my love would keep you going. How wrong I was.
We sent letters back and forth as much as we could. I waited patiently for your replies to arrive, and I was filled with joy when they did.
You talked about training, making new friends, how much you thought of me, loved me, missed me and wanted to be back in my arms. You wrote about graduating, being shipped off to France and being reunited with Gerard, who sent his regards. You even wrote of the atrocities you saw, even though you thought I might be scared reading those letters. What you didn’t know is that I was always scared for you, scared that one day, I wouldn’t get a reply. Or even worse, that one day your parents and I would get the dreaded telegram saying you were never coming home.
How terrible it was when no replies came, no matter how much I wrote to you. What a tragedy it was the day that the officer came knocking at your mother’s door with the dreaded telegram letting us know how sorry the army was to tell us that you, our beloved Michael James Way, was gone forever. Never coming home. Never coming home. Those are the words that kept repeating in my head.
I spent weeks in bed after that. So sad, emotionally broken. I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. I wanted one last chance to be with you, no matter how much I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I wanted to die, Mikey, so I could meet you again in Heaven.
The only reason I got out of that bed and went on living was Gerard. He’d seen you die on that beach, and he was traumatized. The Army sent him home early, and the first person he came to see after his family was me. We sat on my bed, holding each other and sobbing.
He was my rock, and I was his. He understood my pain, and I understood his, and together, our emotional wounds healed. It was 8 months after he came home that Gerard proposed to me. And I accepted. I never loved him as much as I loved you, and I think somewhere deep inside, he knew that, but I loved Gerard in my own way.
We had a long, happy life together, Gerard and I. We traveled and had children, we watched them grow up and have children, and some of those children have children of their own now. We did all the things that you promised me we would do together. I have every belief that somewhere up in Heaven, you watch over us and you are happy that we were happy. I thank you for that, Mikey, for being our guardian angel.
Gerard passed on last winter, and yes, I was sad, but I knew that he met up with you again, and you two are watching over me as I speak, watching over and taking care of your Allie.
Tonight, Mikey, we will meet again. I know that tomorrow when the sun rises, I will have passed on in my sleep, but that thought doesn’t scare me, because I welcome the moment we are reunited. I have always and will always love you, Mikey dearest, and I cannot wait to be in your arms again. So now I say my goodnight to the world and I find my way back to you.