To All Those Brave and Lovely

A Reprieve

Nora had thought about death a lot.

She thinks it started back when she was little, after her mother died.  She had wanted to know where her mother had gone, if she was up in heaven like she had learned that one year she actually went to sunday school, or if it she was lonely, or maybe everyone was wrong and there wasn't anything waiting for you on the other side, just a black wall that you hit and you're existence blinks out like a burned out light bulb.

And then when the city crumbled underneath her and she was flying through the sky, she started thinking about what if felt like to be actually dying, if you fight it until your last breath or if its like a lullaby ushering you into sleep, or if how you go depends on the person.  She thinks about lungs gasping for air that won't be there and a head pounding, about tears and curses and pain, so much pain from so many places, bones crushed under rubble and ribs cracking from a swipe to the side, burns blistering and the thought of no, not yet, I have so many things I still need to do

Those first few days after she became THE GIRL THAT WALKED AWAY, she thought a lot about how she might have died that day.  And then when the darkness crept through the windows and she could hear the loneliness inside her echoing in every creak of the empty house, she started thinking about how she might die in the future- slowly and quickly, in car crashes and with a knife to the chest, crushed under a million pounds of broken things or crashing into the pavement after a leap through the air, some of it she could see coming and some of it she didn't.  It was comforting in a morbid sort of way, but no matter how many times Nora thought about the way she might die, she never quite pictured it like this.

Evangeline is the one they send to do it.  It's just the two of them in that same white room she had woken up in a few days ago, Nora in the middle an Evangeline right in front of her, loading bullets into a gun one by one.  

"Did you always hate me?"  There is something comforting about it just being her and Evangeline, like she had known that this is where it would end up.  This started with Evangeline- it would end with her too.  "Right from the beginning, that day in class, did you know you were just waiting for the day I would need to die?"

"I don't hate you.  This isn't about you at all."  Evangeline's hands were trembling, just the smallest shake, only noticeable because she was fumbling as she loaded the chambers.  They were just waiting for the call, she knew, that last go ahead when the radio crackles to life and Margot passes down the order.  "I just want you to know that I didn't think this is how it was going to end."

"No."  There is no room for lies in this room, it doesn't seem to be the place that allows it.  "It never is, is it?"

The radio does come alive then, a burst of static cutting the tension between them.  Nora draws in one shuddering breath and then turns to face her, tries not to flinch when she hears the safety click off.

"It's not going to hurt.  Not for long."  Evangeline's hand came up to rest against Nora's cheek again, and Nora leant into it, drawing comfort from here she could.  She was trying to be brave, because if they were filming this she didn't want anyone to know she was afraid.  It would be harder for the people who cared about her, if she looked afraid.  "You won't even know it's coming."

"I forgive you for this."  Nora had come to that conclusion sometime last night, after Peter's breathing had evened out and his hand slipped out of hers and she was left to stare at the wall for a few hours before drifting into an uneasy sleep herself.  It wasn't Evangeline's fault that this is where the two of them were left standing, that the pain had warped her mother like it did.  A lot of lines started to blur when it comes to family.  "I don't blame you for it."