Wax and Wane | "Break and Mend" Sequel

Chapter Eight: The Return

A/N: Double upload whoo!

Warnings: violence, attempted murder, mentions of abuse, blood and death

Word Count: 6014

Karen knew something was wrong with Nancy. She knew it from the moment she came home. She didn't want to bother her daughter until she came to her, but she had been waiting too long. She had tried knocking on her bedroom door, and when not receiving an answer, she almost resorted to her old ways of picking the lock and finding out for herself what was going on. But she couldn't.

She had already had a sit-down with her children a month ago about boundaries and being open with each other in which she promised not to poke and prod unless they came to her. She promised not to force herself into Nancy's space and she had to be a woman of her word.

As soon as she left the door, though, Nancy had emerged from her room with red and puffy eyes, a look of dejection on her face. Karen just knew it.

"Maybe Jonathan's right." Nancy rasped from where she sat on the kitchen counter, having just given her mother the rundown of the past few days. "To be honest, I wasn't thinking about him. I wasn't thinking about anyone, really. I just... I wanted to be right. I wanted to be right so badly."

"And were you?" Karen turned to her, nursing a cup of tea in her hands.

"I thought so. But maybe I just... don't want to admit that I'm wrong, because if I'm wrong, then-"

"You're what everyone thinks you are." Karen nodded with a knowing look.

"Just a kid who has no idea what she's doing."

She stared at her daughter thoughtfully for a few beats before looking away with a sigh. "It's not easy out there, Nance."

"I know..."

"People are always saying you can't. That you shouldn't. That you're not... smart enough... not good enough. This world, it... it beats you up again and again until eventually, I..."

Nancy blinked at her mother's vulnerability.

"Most people... they just stop trying." Karen took this time to hop onto the counter beside her daughter, certainty in her eyes. "But you're not like that. You're a fighter. You always have been. I honestly don't know where you get it from."

"Dad."

At Nancy's joke, the two looked up at each other before letting out soft laughs.

"I think you were swapped in the hospital, to tell you the truth." Karen jokingly sighed out.

"No," Nancy shook her head and set a hand on her mother's. "I get it from you, Mom."

A single tear fell down Karen's cheek.

"I get it from you."

So many words formed and died on Karen's tongue. It had been so long since anyone had said something about herself so different from what she always thought of. Her children made her feel so strong, but she hardly felt it at times. To hear from her own source of strength that she was their reason... She got choked up just thinking about it.

"Well, wherever you get it from," She sniffled. "I'm proud of you."

Nancy inhaled deeply. "Proud of me for getting fired?"

"That you stood up for yourself. That you stood up to those... shitheads."

The teen whipped her head up with wide eyes and an agape mouth, hardly ever hearing such words from her mother. "Mom!"