Dearly Departed

[game_byrd]

Title: Dearly Departed
Rating: PG
Warnings: Maternal grief
Word Count: 450
Summary: Tammy Wilcox, mother of Jackie, continues to mourn her daughter.
Notes: Written for heroes_contest drabble challenge #35, “Spirit”. Beta by dancingdragon3. There's a sequel to this story called " New Target".

Comments

[black_sluggard]

Ouch. Yeah, that's pretty awful in hindsight. :(

[game_byrd]

TV shows have a tendency to pretend that no one matters other than the named characters. They don't need explanations, have goals and hopes and dreams, or have expectations. It seems to be a necessary evil of filming, because you have to simplify reality enough to tell a single, clear, understandable story in less than an hour. Writing gives us more room to address things like the rest of the world.

[game_byrd]

And eep! That formatting! Fixed it.

[game_byrd]

I think we can only have one entry for the contest and anyway, my second one was too long. I suppose I could have cut it down, but it was something I only thought of last night, late.

I know I write a whole lot about the major characters (Peter and Sylar), but I like thinking about the rest. It's a whole world! I based Tammy off a nice lady who used to work for me who told me something of her life story. Not that she lost her daughter - but that she'd been a real hell-raiser when younger. You wouldn't know for how steady, calm, and wise she was now.

[means2bhuman]

Oh, wow. This is good in a true and horrible way

[game_byrd]

In defense of Claire, she was pretty young (I prefer to think 16 ... I think Jackie is in the same year as Claire and has/drives a car, same for that football jock/rapist, Brody). And even though she'd suicided several times to test her ability, I would think it would be different to do it on your own, willingly, where you felt in control of circumstances, than to face violence from a scary, super-powered killer. Also, Claire *did* go to Jackie's defense. Sylar threw Claire off to the side like a rag doll.

But ... none of that would matter to Tammy, because Claire almost certainly told her nothing in canon (as she told her nearly nothing in my story). At that point, Claire was letting herself be intimidated by her father into secrecy-for-all. Much of the blame can be laid on Noah as well.

Thank you for the kind comments! I love fleshing out backstory on characters and I had a bit of fun doing something so different.

[paynesgrey]

What a sad and terrible revelation for Jackie's mom, going around thinking her daughter helped saved someone only that person never needed to be saved, thus probably invalidating her daughter's sacrifice. A touching, poignant story with a lot of great depth here into a character that is even more rare than a "minor" character. Well done! And great job for exploring it.

[game_byrd]

Thank you!

[amles80]

Oh! This is so amazing! And right before I logged in to LJ I was thinking about minor/underused Heroes characters and the ones no one seems to think about. And then I see that you wrote Jackie's mother. That alone is something to love. Then what you write about is heartbreaking and sad; a mother's grief. And last but not least, the ending is crushing! Poor Tammy, what a terrible realization!

[game_byrd]

Heh. I suspect that may be the only "Jackie's mother" story in existence. Glad you liked it!

[amles80]

That's probably true - and that's one reason why it's so good. :)