Dark is the Way, Light is a Place - Part One
Title: Dark is the Way, Light is a Place
Rating: PG-13 [strong]
Pairing: Thomas Leroy/Nina Sayers
Word Count: 1,320/2,356
Warnings: I'm pretty sure there a lot of things I could put here, but I honestly can't think of anything
Summary: The ending of Black Swan and what happened after [right now this is only two parts, but I might make it three (or more) later]
The first thing Nina did when she heard the knock at the door was look towards the bathroom where Lily was stored. The blood still hadn't seeped through the towel she had placed there earlier, which she found a little strange, but it was working in her favor. Whoever was at the door wouldn't see the blood and therefore wouldn't ask what she had done.
Setting down her makeup she checked the mess by the mirror, looked at the bathroom door one more time, and got up to see who wanted to speak with her. She was sure it was just Thomas telling her she had only so much time left before the final act, but when she opened the door and saw who it really was, she gasped, nearly passing out from shock.
"Hey! You were amazing." Lily was smiling, the look of awe in her eyes was sincere and her tone of surprise and kindness was just as genuine. "Seriously. I know that things got a little messed up between us, but…I mean holy shit! You completely blew me away!"
Nina looked at the ground, before returning her eyes to Lily's face, not knowing what to say or do. Was this real? What was happening right now? What had happened before?
"Okay, well, I guess that's it. So I'll let you finish," Lily's voice jerked her out of her thoughts and back to what was happening presently. She waved and smiled, saying a quick goodbye before she walked away.
Nina closed the door slowly behind her and glanced around the room, her brows drawing together in confusion. The mirror really was broken. The towel was still by the door.
But what about the blood under the towel?
She lifted the corners up and saw a bloodless floor beneath. The linoleum was the same color it had been before she’d changed her outfit after the second act. There was no blood and it was only when she pushed open the bathroom door and found no dead Lily inside, she realized there never had been any blood, just like there never had been a Lily gazing down at her when she was in the bathtub or voices coming from the pictures her mother drew of her or a black feather protruding from her back. None of that happened. None of that was real. It had never been real and this wasn't real either.
So what really happened?
Then it hit her. It seemed so unlikely. In fact, it probably hadn't happened at all, but the possibility was still there and that was the reason when she looked down she felt fear engulf her. She moved her fingers carefully around her midsection and when she found the hole the glass had made, tears filled her eyes. She pulled the bit of mirror from her stomach and stared at the blood covered piece as pain swallowed her whole. She wanted to curl up in a corner and scream and cry, but she couldn't right now. She had to be perfect. She had to finish this act.
She walked carefully back over to her makeup stand and began reapplying the makeup her tears had washed away, but it was no use. She only cried harder and her makeup smeared even more. She wiped her tears away with her sponge and tried to smile, tried to tell herself that this wasn't real either and everything was going to be okay. Everything was going to be perfect.
By the time she was ready for the final act, she believed this.
The last act seemed to go by much faster than the two before it and Nina did not believe this had anything to do with the fact is was twice as short as the other two as well.
As she danced about the stage, the other girls dancing around her, the men dancing with her, she felt the pain of the white swan as though it were her own. She moved with complete grace as the man who played the prince lifted her into the air. She let herself bend perfectly as the man who was the dark wizard did the same.
Once he set her down, she moved almost to the edge of the stage to give the audience one last look of utter sorrow before she half ran up the ramp to the makeshift mountain that she would leap from to symbolize her death, the death of the white swan.
As she danced, looking both left and right at the girls who were supposed to be her swan sisters, she did not notice the blood seeping from the wound the glass had made in her abdomen earlier. She had long since convinced herself this never happened and that hot wetness she felt was just a figment of her imagination. Like everything else during these past few weeks had been. It was only her overactive imagination.
She looked one last time at the audience and saw her mother sitting there, right in the spot she had reserved for her so long ago when she first learned she was the new prima ballerina. She felt the tears she had locked away earlier resurface and, as the music gave her that last cue, she placed her arms above her head and leapt from the cliff to the soft mattress below.
As she fell, everything from the past few weeks seemed to melt away. All the pain, the stress, the anger. All the doubt, the fear, the lies. Everything, all of it, was gone and life, for the first time in a very long time was perfect. She allowed herself a small smile as all of her fellow dancers moved from the stage to where she was, clapping and smiling, so proud of their beautiful Swan Queen.
"Do you hear them?" Thomas pushed through the girls surrounding her. There was a brilliantly bright smile on his face. "They love you! They love you!" He bent down over her and placed a gentle hand on her cheek. "My little princess," he smiled wider still. "I always knew you had it in you."
She gave him an uncomfortable look as thoughts of Beth pushed through the happy fog in her mind. He called her that, she remembered vaguely. He called her that and look what happened to her.
"Come on," Thomas said, pushing himself up off the mattress, his hand sliding away from her face. "Let's take your bow."
Lily was the first to see it, gasping as Thomas slipped away. He turned back to her, his smile still intact until he saw her middle. Blood was no longer seeping slowly from the wound, it was gushing from it, dripping down her sides and onto the white satin beneath her. Thomas's face flashed from happy to shocked in an instant and before Nina knew what was happening he was calling for help, telling someone to call an ambulance, anything to help his little princess.
"What did you do?" Thomas half shouted, placing the back of his hand on Nina's right cheek, worry had consumed him and the anxiety in his eyes was heartbreaking. She almost wanted to lift her own hand to his face to comfort him, but she hadn't the strength.
"What did you do?" he repeated, this time sounding pleading and disappointed, almost as though he knew how she had been wounded.
She smiled at him and said softly, "I felt it."
"What?" his tone was now bordering on angry.
"Perfect," she breathed, smiling genuinely for the first time in who knew how long. She turned from Thomas, her smile widening. "It was perfect."
The lights above her were twinkling like stars. She watched with fascination as they melted together and created one bright light, a light that blocked out everything else and sucked her into it, a light that was filled with cheering, clapping and perfection.
[ part two]