Work Text:
Happily Ever After
Author: Cristin Anne
E-mail: mulligag@tznet.com
Rating: PG-13
Warning: JILLFIC ALERT!!
Archive: Kitsah, and anybody. *Please* take it!!
Author's Notes: I know this isn't my usual fare, but I was really depressed today, and had to do *something* to get it out. This is the result.
Disclaimer: These guys ain't mine. But I've got my lottery ticket in my grubby little hands, and I'm hopin'. This story however, is mine. ALL MINE!!
ARCHIVIST WARNING: DEATH OF MAIN CHARACTER
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
By Cristin Anne
John Crichton looked dejectedly at the recorder in his hands, running his fingers lightly over the fading IASA logo. He felt the contours with his fingertips, grazing over its familiar lines and textures. Normally, he took comfort in this small piece of what was once his home, but not tonight. Not tonight.
John rolled the recorder over in his hands. Over, and over, and over, as if this simple movement could calm his thoughts, ease his regrets, and relieve his pain. Its hard shell bumped and bruised his hands , but he felt nothing. All he felt was the pain of his own mind, his own grief, his own despair. And from that, there was no haven.
He had killed her. A moment of fleeting paranoia, desperate insanity, and he had killed her. He glanced once more down at the recorder lying in his palm, and he threw it across the room. It slammed against the opposite wall, somehow managing to bounce off the floor, and land back in his hands unscathed. He stared at it, at the hope, the love, and the future it had represented, and he threw it again, watching in satisfaction as it crashed into a million tiny pieces.
He collapsed onto the floor in a heap, bringing his head into his hands. He remembered her, and all she still yet meant to him, and how he himself had ended it all in a single paranoid instant. John let the tears flow unchecked as he pictured her, and the fleeting moments they had shared together.
It wasn't supposed to end this way. He was supposed to be the handsome prince who rescued her from the evil demons, and instead he himself had become the greatest demon of all. They were supposed to have lived, as the stories foretold, happily ever after, in their own kingdom, living on love alone.
But fairy tale dreams never do come true, and wishes have never become horses. Genies don't come out of lamps, and fairy godmothers are can't really make coaches. No one would ever come to pick up the pieces he had scattered, no one could try and mend his torn soul.
The others all looked at him differently now. He was more alien to them now than he had ever been before. He took one of them. He killed one of them. And she had trusted him. The others had trusted him. And now, he no longer trusted himself.
He knew that his time spent in the chair had brought with it temporary insanity, but he hadn't known just how much Scorpius had changed him. Sanity seemed to be a distant memory, only not just from the chair anymore. He had killed her.
How was he supposed to live with that? He had killed the only one he had ever truly loved. How he could he reconcile himself? How could he forgive himself? How could he ever again trust himself? How could anyone else forgive him, trust him?
He didn't think he could; he didn't think they could. To live now, in the wake of memories, haunted by her spirit at every turn, at every thought, at every word. Nothing could ever purge the guilt he felt. Nothing could ever make him forgive himself.
He looked across the room at her still body, covered in gold sheets, and down at his guilty hands, still stained with her blood, blood now many days old. He knew that he had tried to save her, but he knew too that it was he who killed her. And there wasn't even a reason why.
They had been chased for days, bombarded constantly, and he had feared that the hidden enemy had made it onto Moya. His paranoia, his now apparent schizophrenia, had caused him to flinch at every turn, to see things that really weren't there, he realized that now. But that couldn't help her now.
He had been fixing the counsel, unaware of his surroundings, when she had tapped him on the shoulder. Without even thinking, he had whipped out his blaster and shot. She had died, almost instantly, and the look of betrayal in her eyes would be burned into his mind forever.
He didn't deserve to live now, not after what he'd done to her. All he knew now was grief, pain, and despair. He knew, somewhere deep inside, that this was breaking him further, that this constant pull at his sanity was slowly giving way. Because he couldn't live without her.
He couldn't live without her. She was his life, she was his home. And he had destroyed her. He had killed her. He had killed himself.
He looked back at the body lying still on the table, and the gun lying beside her. Very slowly he forced his legs to move, to bring himself to her side. He caressed her face, and kissed her gently.
He picked up the gun, and pointed it his chin. "I'm sorry, Aeryn. God, I'm so sorry. I love you, Aeryn. God, do I love you. I love you so damn much. I am so fucking sorry."
And he pulled the trigger.
=30=