Fire to Water

Alive

It was smart to stay behind. 

It was clever.

It was a good idea.

Someone needed to keep looking.

She couldn't even eat food.

Only Ty— and Kit— could see her.

She wasn't missing out on anything.

So why was she jealous?

It was dumb.

Sometimes she missed being alive— being real, being able to eat, to touch, to breath, to hear her heartbeat— so much it hurt.

Ty was growing up. Even Dru was older than she had been when she died. Her little sister. Now Livvy was the little one.

What she wouldn't give to just hug her sister again.

She didn't want to seem ungrateful for her new life— it wasn't all that bad. It was certainly better than being dead.

But she wished she didn't have to worry about things like that. She wished she didn't have to be grateful to be brought back— she wished she didn't have to be brought back at all. Sometimes she closed her eyes and pretended she was as old as her twin, and alive, and real, and the both of them had just grown up together  like any other nephilim. She would imagine learning to drive (Julian had said he'd teach her after the centurions had left and things calmed down), doing big circles in the parking lot, knuckles white on the wheel, Julian in the passenger seat and Ty in the back, reading, waiting his turn. She would think about fighting demons, back-to-back with Ty, him only barely taller, both of them holding blades. She would imagine sitting on the beach with all of them, laughing and digging her toes into the warm sand.

And then she would open her eyes and be cold and incorporeal and dead, and all of the happiness would dissipate and she would hate Annabelle so much she felt like crying, but she couldn't cry, no matter how much she wanted to. She was dead, and ghosts didn't have tear ducts.

And now everyone was downstairs eating except her. 

It was stupid to feel left out.

 But still.

It didn't matter if they were eating something as gross as olive loaf and zucchini. She wanted to be down there, eating with them, visible to everyone. Not brought back from the dead, but not dead at all. 

Livvy pretended she was capable of sitting on the bed and curled into a ball and wished, not for the first nor twentieth time, that she could still cry.

"Livvy?" Ty called.

"Yeah?" She didn't have to hide the tears in her voice— death was convenient like that. She only sounded choked up if she wanted to.

"Do you remember where we left the bags?"

Livy nodded. "Upstairs, first room on the left. Why?"

Ty nodded and left.

She knew it wasn't Ty's fault, not really, she knew that he got focused, but now, when she was dead and cold and invisible to everyone else, it was harder.

But no, no. 

Death was a benefit.

She could keep searching, wander into the other rooms, float through the closets. She no longer needed a night vision rune to see in the dark.

She could be helpful.

She could do something.

Maybe Clary had left a note somewhere.

She didn't have to sleep anymore, and she told herself it was a good thing, that she could keep searching through the night.

Five hours later she could no longer convince herself that undeath was a plus.

She was so bored. 

Who knew the institute had so many identical rooms?

Wardrobe, bare mattress, table. All empty, but of course she had to put her head through the wardrobe and check, every single time.

And every time, there was nothing but spiders and moths and a very surprised mouse or two.

By two in the morning she was exasperated and felt dusty, as if she was a collection of dust motes and sawdust. It was overall extremely unpleasant feeling, but no more so than the soft chill of the Tarn.

She always caught herself thinking of the tarn at random moments, mostly alone, mostly at night. The cold dark of the sky. The emptiness of the world.

The feeling that she was the only thing aware, in an entire city, the closest thing to alive.

There was no escape from the loneliness at night.

No way to pretend.

The harsh truth of the darkness made her hate it and its  reminders that in all the world, she was the only one like this.

The night knew she was alone, and at night, so did she.

A/n: sorry not sorry for the angst, it's fun to write. Next chapter should be better