We tried to convince him the risk was too much, but he was convinced of his own Midus Touch...
Title: Welcome Home
Fandom: Feeling Electric
Author: Chris (me, in other words)
Feedback: Don't make me beg for it. *puppy eyes*
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Natalie, Gabe, Dan, Diana
Pairings: Eh... Might be some Gabe/Natalie subtext if you really want to push it.
Spoilers: None if you've listened to the show.
Warnings: Mentions of suicide, death, mild to moderate angst, and some serious creepiness.
Summary: Fifty-year-old Natalie Brown receives surprise visitors late one night.
Disclaimer: I don't even pretend to be clever enough to create something as fantastical as FE.
Author's Notes: Yeeeeah, I'm gonna make a reputation for myself by being the chick who writes the creepy fanfics, aren't I?
Natalie Brown was nearing fifty, and she had hoped that by surviving this long, she'd manage to gain a sense of control over her life that would no longer require the use of a shrink. She'd hoped that maybe now that her parents were both gone from this Earth in their own respective ways, she'd be able to retain a sense of clarity and shrug off the instability that had once weighed heavily upon her shoulders.
For a child of Dan and Diana Brown, clarity and stability were hardly that accessible.
When she had moved from Seattle to St. Louis with her aging, chronically depressed father twenty years ago, there might have been hope for a brighter tomorrow, but Dan Brown couldn't be cured of his aching desire for his long-missing wife and even the desperate attempts to make things right for him made by his "favorite kid" had failed him in the long run. Eventually, therapy and shrinks were found to be futile and he was simply placed in a home where he had eventually died, more or less, of despair, although probably by his own hand, but nothing could be proven either way. Natalie wasn't convinced that the man was ever really alive to begin with so her grief was more or less limited.
It was only after her father's death that she finally bothered to track down her mother, who had apparently relapsed into a far darker state of depression and had finally succeeded in ending her own life. Grief was limited in that respect as well, seeing as Natalie expected it to happen a long time ago. Perhaps there was a better place and Dan and Diana Brown had found it. It was a notion that she would have found laughable in her youth, but somehow, as an adult, she found some comfort in it.
After that, Natalie tried to make things better. She got married, she had a child (whom, thanks to a heavy dose of drugs, she had apparently suggested be named Gabriel, and by the time she was cognizant to realize what she had done, the name had been made official), and she continued to live out her new life, avoiding every testament to her past, but always managing to run into it somewhere down the road whether it be a phone call from Dr. Maden "checking up on her" or even catching glimpses of young couples on the street who reminded her of her parents in their "better days". The only solace she found in that undeniable bit of reality was that she had yet to see him. She assumed that once that happened, she would be off in the deep end and drowning fast, and she doubted there'd be anyone there to save her.
Eventually, however, the images from the past faded into oblivion, and for that she was grateful. She was an old woman now, and the last thing she needed was something like inevitable insanity ruining her golden years. She thought, for awhile anyway, that she had finally escaped from it all, that she had finally forgotten "fucking everything..."
No such luck...
It happened late one night. She couldn't sleep and had come down to the living room to occupy her time in a more productive manner, rather than lay in bed, tossing and turning and disturbing her husband. She was subconsciously aware that this midnight fluttering was something she had always attributed to her mother, but she banished the thought. Heaven forbid, she started to become Diana Brown's daughter this late in the game!
As she mulled about her house, looking around at the pictures on the wall of her family and friends- particularly of all the ones of Little Gabriel, who was not so little anymore. He was away at college studying to be, in a brutal trick of irony, a psychologist. She ran a finger along one of her favorite pictures of him- a professional portrait depicting him at age six dressed like a cowboy, straddling a stuffed pony with a huge grin prominent on his features.
For a flicker of a second, she saw half of her reflection in the glass, accompanied by another face just behind hers, juxtaposed over the face of her child. She gasped and turned around quickly, her eyes widening in shock as she came face-to-face with the last person she wanted to see at this very moment.
"Gabe," she choked.
He still looked sixteen, but a ghost hardly bothered with the passing of years. His dark hair and brown eyes were just the same as she remembered, and that all-too devious smirk... God, she thought she'd die without seeing that again.
"Hello, Natalie," he said softly.
"What are you doing here?" She demanded, trying to sound fierce, despite being unable to hide the fear in her own voice.
He touched her wrinkled cheek and she almost felt the softness of his skin, although she knew it was merely illusion cast by this demonic spectre with an angel's face and name. His brow furrowed as his hand moved to her silver hair, his fingers entwining in her short curls. "Oh, Natalie, you've allowed your beauty to fade."
"It happens when you get old," Natalie snapped, keeping her voice low lest she wake her husband and alert him to this sad passion play of insanity she thought she'd never take part in again. "You, being dead and all, wouldn't know anything about that."
Gabriel took his hand away from her head and touched his chest, his expression hurt. "Is that any way to speak to your big brother?"
"I don't want you here," Natalie shook her head. "You're not a part of my life anymore."
"And yet you named your only child after me," Gabriel smirked, taking a few steps towards the mantle to look fondly upon the face of his namesake.
"I was drugged," Natalie rolled her eyes.
Gabriel chuckled. "I see." He turned to face her, his smile fading. "As much as I enjoy idle chit-chat, I'm here on business."
Natalie made a small noise of contempt. "How maudlin of you."
He walked back to her, resting his hands on her shoulders. God, she could feel him pressing his weight against her, holding her there, even though he really wasn't. Hell, he wasn't even corporeal. "Don't you want to be happy, Natalie?"
"I am happy," Natalie whispered, refusing to meet his gaze.
"Don't you want to be young again? To be with mom and dad and experience life the way it should have been?"
"You mean off myself?" Natalie narrowed her eyes. "I'm forty-nine years old with a husband and a child who love me, and you expect me to give that all up and come with you?"
Gabriel smiled. "Yes."
She pulled away even though there was nothing there to pull away from. "You have Mom... You have Dad... Hell, at this point, you probably have Dr. Maden. Can't you just leave me be?"
"But you're my little sister, Natalie, and I love you," Gabriel said, his expression oddly innocent.
"Just leave an old woman in peace, Gabe," Natalie shook her head and turned away. "I don't want any part of this." She headed to the stairs, preparing to go back to her husband's side. That was where her sanity lay- with him and with her son. As long as she was with them, Gabriel and the illusions he brought with him couldn't find her. As long as they existed, her past wouldn't be allowed access to her life.
Halfway up the stairs, however, she heard a voice that made her blood run cold and she had to stop.
"Natalie."
She turned around, her eyes widening in shock at the figure now standing beside Gabe, looking as he had thirty-four years ago, the despair-ridden old man she had last seen him as completely gone. "D-Dad?"
Dan Brown nodded, a big smile on his face. "How's my favorite kid?"
Natalie couldn't respond, her voice was caught in her throat and she thought for certain that it was trying to choke her to death, if such a thing were possible.
"You see, Natalie?" Gabriel smirked. "We all want you to come with us. You wouldn't want to keep going on in this world, watching as your body decays with age, would you?"
No... She didn't want that. As a young girl, she had been absolutely disgusted at the thought that one day her youthful beauty would fade and she'd grow older and older until eventually every part of her being broke down bit by bit. As she did grow older, however, she had pushed aside that thought and accepted it as fate. Now, she spared a glance at her wrinkled and haggard body in the mirror hanging on the wall beside her, seeing for the first time the decaying creature she was. In the faintest of seconds, her reflection flickered and she saw the girl she once was, all blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes.
Could she be that way again?
"You're tired, Natalie," Dan said. "You've earned this release."
"You want it, Natalie," Gabriel added. "You've always wanted it."
"I..." She whispered, still staring at the mirror reflecting her fifteen-year-old self.
"Natalie, sweetheart," a female voice spoke, causing her to pull away from the mirror to lock eyes with her mother, standing at the bottom of the stairs, one hand resting on the banister, while the other reached out to her. Diana Brown had never looked so beautiful and full of life in all the years Natalie had known her as she did at that moment. "Don't you want to be with us again?" She asked.
She stared at them, these illusions that called out to her to do the unthinkable. She thought of her son and her husband and what would become of them if she took this leap and followed her family. She thought of how easy it would be to just ignore them and keep walking, go on with the rest of her life and die a natural death like any other old woman.
"You want it, Natalie."
"You deserve it, Natalie."
"You need it, Natalie."
Nothing they were saying to her in was revelation and the reality of that fact hit her hard. She did spend nights dreaming of what would happen if she surrendered and joined her family. She often wondered if it would be better to end her life before things went downhill for her mortal body. God, their offers were so tempting....
She took one look up the stairs, debating once again whether or not she should ascend and leave them behind, but she turned away. She knew now she wanted it too badly to refuse. Her husband and her son would simply have to go on without her. After all, her family needed her, didn't they? For once she wasn't the invisible girl. She was wanted by them, and that was all she had ever wanted in her entire life.
She started walking down the stairs, feeling the aches and pains of aging joints suddenly fade into oblivion. As she reached for her mother's hand, she suddenly felt like her old self again. Not a fifty-year-old woman, but a fifteen-year-old girl full of that youthful vitality that had long abandoned her.
"That's my girl," Diana smiled as Natalie's hand enclosed around hers. There was a small flash of light and suddenly every worry, care, or trouble that Natalie had carried with her for so long evaporated. She was safe now. Safe, warm, and loved, here alongside her family... The way it was always meant to be. No more insanity, no more "invisible girl," nothing but the perfection she had never had before. It was all in her grasp now, and for the first time in years, she felt truly, truly happy.
"Welcome home, Natalie."