The day bleeds into nightfall

'It's like I'm frozen, but the world still turns'

Monday 20th July 2037.

'Are you sure you don't want to come?' Joe asks his wife, who has moved from their bed to the sofa. This seems like a permanent fixture, since the funeral. Maddie had been kicked off, deciding to sleep in the guest bedroom. She had been thinking about moving back into their room, she felt ready. Maybe when they had Ruby's things back in the room, she will feel better.

'No- how many times have I told you.' She snaps back. Joe, Maddie and Theo are all making the drive back to Birmingham, to collect her things. Theo and Maddie are going in Theo's car, Joe and Graham are going in his car. They weren't sure how much she had, but it was a tight squeeze on the way down, so they were taking too cars. Emotions were running high with Dianne today, but, when weren't they?

'You have your satnav, right?' Theo nods, pointing to his sister. 'If you are hoping for Maddie to direct you, you are an idiot You will never get there.'

'Are you saying I'm useless then dad?'

'Yes, my darling, you are like your mother who is a nightmare when I need her to direct me.' Maddie and Theo grin, as she lifts up their phones. 'I'll, we'll stop off somewhere to get lunch.' He promises, 'I'll get grandad to text Maddie. 'Have a safe trip down and love you.'

Usually the pair would roll their eyes, but they got why their dad did it. They finally understood why he told they he loved them at every opportunity, because he would worry that they would be gone. Maddie wouldn't tell anyone, but she wished that their mum would tell her that she loved her, just once.

'Oh, this is a tune.' Maddie grins, fiddling with her phone and the aux chord. 'It's not about reciprocation, it's just all about me.' Theo grins joining in.

'A sycophantic, prophetic, Socratic junkie wannabe.' They stay silent for the next line, that was Ruby's line.

'And there's so much skin to see.' The voice of Matt Healy rings out through the car. Usually it would be accompanied with Ruby rocking out in the car, she was the most dramatic "Rockstar" they had stumbled across.

'A simple Epicurean philosophy. Oh, and you say I'm such a cliché. I can't see the difference in it either way.' They sing in harmony, as Maddie turns up the sound. 'And we left things to protect my mental health, but you'll call me when you're bored and you're playing with yourself.'

'I do like that song.' Theo grins, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. 'Even without Ruby.' He feels awful for saying that, but he knows he has to forge some sort of normality, they need to find a new normal. As hard as it is to face, they are going to have to find a balance of missing her and getting on with their lives. They can't live in her shadow for the rest of their lives.

'Me too.' A breath leaving her mouth, one she didn't know she was holding in. 'I was worried it was just me. I just feel like we can't listen to it, because she isn't here.'

'No, I do too.' He confirms, his eyes scanning the road ahead. It hits him that he shouldn't be making this journey, nothing about this trip is normal. He was trying to make it as normal for the other brunette in the car, it occurred to him that whilst he tried to hide behind the pretence that he was doing this for Maddie, it was also for his benefit. He wanted things to go back to the way they were, or at least to try to forge some sort of normality. He wasn't naïve enough to think that it would be a quick change, it would be a gradual process, little things at a time. One of those things is this, listening to songs that they sung with Ruby. They couldn't stop doing things they loved because Ruby wasn't there, they had to adapt. Their dad was helping with that, spending time with them and actually speaking to them.

The pair knew that he was trying to get Dianne help, she was just refusing it. It was clear that there was something wrong. They heard him on the phone one night, they didn't mean to eavesdrop, but he was talking to Zoe about how he didn't know how to help Dianne.

From that conversation, they gained a new-found respect for their dad. He broke down on the phone, in the middle of the night. The pair had been watching the big bang theory, and Maddie had just been about to leave when they heard their dad's voice. They listened as he told his sister about how he felt, and how he was trying to help Dianne, but she was vicious, she had an acid tongue. They heard the names she had called him, how he wished he had died instead of Ruby, yet he still loved her, and he wanted her to get help.

They knew Dianne wouldn't listen to them, she was so stuck in her own world, no one could get through to her. She was like a ghost, everyone had tried. They thought she would be able to come, to help them pack her stuff. She was going to have to face it sometime, when they got home they were going to have to sort out her stuff.

They knew it was mostly packed, unless someone had come and trashed the room, so it should be a simple case of moving boxes into the car. In all honestly, none of them wanted to stay in Birmingham for longer than they had too, this was where Ruby died. This is where Ruby was last alive, where she spent her final moments. And, to them, that was a hideously scary thought.

As the sight of the accommodation looms, the pair felt their hearts speed up. They had been here before, they had a laugh whilst they were here, yet today, it seemed different. The life that was once here was gone, it was dark, and it looked, almost, derelict.

'Are you ready?' Theo asked his sister, wiping his hands on his t-shirt. Maddie shakes her head, no but she never would be. 'No neither am I mouse.'

'We have to-do it though.' He nods in agreement, stepping out into the sweltering heat, as the other two family members join them.

'You okay?' Graham asks, unsure if he's talking to his son, or his grandchildren. Today was never going to be easy, but the more people there are, the quicker it will be. They had done this just under a year ago, them all coming up. Now they were going back, all bar one family member. The one family member who matters, the one they were supposed to be picking up.

They are greeted by the accommodation team, taking them to her room, giving them peace. It looks so familiar, yet everything has changed. No one speaks for a moment, all holding their breaths, almost as if they are waiting for Ruby to jump out and scare them. Logically, they know it isn't going to happen, they've seen her corpse, they watched her being lowered into the ground, but they wanted to believe that they were wrong, that Ruby wasn't gone.

'I'll take the bedding.' Maddie announces catching Theo's eye, there was something about this that had spooked her. Maybe it was that nothing had changed at all, it was all eerily familiar. The room was almost bare, not quite. There were obvious parts she hadn't cleaned up, her makeup was littered on the desk that was at the end of the bed, a stray tissue that hadn't been binned with her lipstick stain on it. Maddie's heart beats faster, picking it up and putting it in her pocket, hoping no one would notice. She can't explain why she wants it, maybe it's because it would have been one of the last things her sister had touched, maybe it's her sub-conscious telling her she needed to, trying to fight back tears. She looks over to Theo, who mouths if she's okay, not wanting to end the silence that had overcome them. She doesn't reply, she isn't okay, but she knew that she wanted to be here. She had to be there for her sister, she's overcome with unexpected emotion. She wasn't expecting to be so upset.

Joe couldn't speak, he thought he would be stronger than this. When the four of them stood in the room, it occurred to him how small it actually was, something he hadn't noticed before. It was very bare, all her pictures and posters had been taken down and now it was just a normal student room, basic and boring. He thought it might scream Ruby, but it didn't. Even though this was the last place she lived, it didn't look like her room, it wasn't a mess, it did was just another room.

It took half an hour for them to empty the room, significantly less than they were anticipating. When Joe made a joke, to Ruby as they arranged her homecoming, that he didn't want to be hanging around forever whilst she faffed about, it was just a joke. Ruby, however, had seemed to take that to heart, the boxes had slotted perfectly in the cars, splitting it almost evenly between the pair of them.

It was only once they left Birmingham did any of them dare speak.

A/N Thoughts?