fic: forever or alone, ruler; teen wolf gen
title: forever or alone, ruler
Her room almost doesn't smell like her anymore. Sometimes there's a hint of her, just a whiff, but it's enough. It's enough because it has to be enough.
She had a spark to her that's easy to remember. A spark that made her who she was. They could only wonder how much more that spark would have grown. Would she have changed the world, a world beyond theirs. Would she have made more people smile, more people than them.
What hurts the most is not knowing.
Why she left them. Where she went. Where she is now. (Not dead. Not dead. Not dead.)
There were hours, days, years spent in the hospital never knowing, never being sure. And then nothing.
Except before nothing there were short skirts and tights shirts and bold lipstick colors. Another question.
"I bought strawberries yesterday," he says. "I'll take them into work tomorrow."
"Okay."
Unlearning habits is hard.
Then, there's the dichotomy of wanting to remember everything and desperately wanting to forget if only for an hour. Forget her smile and her laugh and the way she needed them so badly for so long and then. Nothing.
Sometimes when walking around town or the grocery store the boy she brought home once will be there. Tall and dark and quiet and he looks at them with such sorrow that they know he knows but he never approaches them and it's everything they can do not to run up and shake him and demand answers.
Then he's gone too. Just like dozens of other people in this town. This cursed, angry town.
They want to move, they want to get away and escape. But. Her room. That hint of her smell. They can't. Not yet. Not until all that's left are fading memories and too many questions.
People at work don't know what to say to them. Not that they blame them. What is there to say? The most they knew of her was when they were calling out of work, another medical emergency, and can you cover for me, please. There aren't any more medical emergencies but sometimes one of them will call in anyway. Another day I'm too sad to get out of bed, can you cover for me this time too, please? No one ever says no.
Except the police.
No, we've had no leads. No, we haven't forgotten her but after so long she has been moved down in priority. No, we can't spare (the few) men we have left to look everywhere you think she might be.
Beacon Hills is the one town that needs private investigators and seems to be the only town without any.
Every time they leave town and come back they want to write a warning on the 'Now Entering Beacon Hills' sign. Or maybe just a list of suspiciously murdered people. Missing people. Cops that have left or been killed in action.
The high school used to be on their route home. Another place that needs a warning sign. Warning: teachers go missing. Warning: teachers die. Warning: do not send your kids to this school if you love them.
What's wrong with this town? With these parents? Erica wasn't first and she wasn't last, and maybe that's the worst. Maybe it's not that they don't know what happened but it's that no one learned from it. No one learned what questions to ask or even how to ask questions. They go to sleep at night and hope it's not them, not their kid. Ignore everything else.
On her desk is an open lipstick, the lid nowhere in sight. Hr fingerprints mar the reflective outside. Proof that she exists. That she existed. That she was here.
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