Fractured

The first thing Madison does when she inexplicably stirs awake at 2 in the morning, is scream.

Because in blinking away the hazy surroundings of her bedroom, and rolling from her supine position to her back with the heels of her hands rubbing away the darkness, she's met with the moonlit shadow of none other then her high school ex.

What comes out next is a string of incomprehensible garbled curses, all strung together to the back of a freight train that cannot leave her throat fast enough.

The ex in question looks up at her, the holes where her eyes are meant to be widening just so and then her head tilts back— the skin of her neck that seems paler than it used to glinting in the bay view window, a low groan tumbling from her lips.

"Oh you've done it now."

Within a split second, Madison is tugging her blankets to her chest like a frightened child and letting out another half-scream, half-swear, more embarrassing whelp when her older brother and father both burst in- the first with a baseball bat at the ready, and the second tightening the knot to the robe bulging around his stomach that he refuses to replace for a properly fitting one, poking himself with the leg of his glasses before fastening them on.

"What? What's going on?" Her brother says, on edge and hair a spiky mess of unwashed gel.

She points, and the two men follow the tremble of her hand to the bay view, where the ex stands, unamused.

"She's right there! Don't you see her?!"

Her bother stares at the space, stepping forward, crouching to swing his gaze beneath the bed, and threw his eyes to the closet, before settling back on the brunette. "Who are you talking about? Where?"

Her father pats his salt and pepper covered head, and with kind eyes peers around his wild blinks to banish the sleep. "What are you taking about, sweetheart?"

"Emmy! She's-- she's right there!" It's half question half accusation that borders on whining and the woman looks up from where she's admiring a photo of Madison, younger by a handful posed by a childhood dog. Emmy smiles.

Jason looks every shade confused, every line in his face flooding with that shameless pity she knows all too well, reaching without any certain weight shifting his stance forward with the back of his hand to his sisters forehead like she's the deadliest thing in the room, bat limp by his side.

"Are you feeling okay?"

Madison swats at him, and he backs off with hands raised in surrender. Madison thinks she's close to the brink of insanity--

"Tell them it's a nightmare." Emmy says, smooth and soothing into the discomfort buzzing around.

"Uh..." Her gaze darts to her father and brother, both expectant and bordering something that forewarned of institutionalization. Inexplicably, she abides."Bad dream. Sorry."

Emmy is now running her fingertips along the knifes edge of the wall, painted a deep purple with a sort of tenderness that... it would be both right and wrong to call it displaced. Given the fact Emmy wasn't meant to be here at all, let alone having some kind of trip down memory lane..

Emmy smiles approvingly when she looks up from the photo in her other hand. "Good job. Its nice to know my words carry years after I've said them."

Madison clenches her jaw. This was a dream. No, no this was a nightmare, like her subconscious brought a demonic abomination to animation. She had read about dream theory- they almost always made you dream of something completely different than the meaning itself. This Emmy looked nothing like the real one, so this was fine— this was—

Emmy groans again, heavier as she swings herself down onto the windowsill's bench, face in her hands but her words escape her fingers. "Who's this guy?"

Madison doesn't get a chance to process the confusion, between her brother and dad acting like two NPC's called off in-action stalling awkwardly by the doorway, and the neck break speed in which Jason nearly goes face first into dream-nightmare Emmy when the next man, this one with gaming controller in hand bursts in, dropping onto the bed beside her with eyes full of such honour that she wanted to humourlessly call him off like a solider.

"You alright babe?"

His hands are soft against her cheeks-- meaty and heavy and calloused from lacrosse. It does little to soothe the Great War six feet away.

"Yeah I'm alright, Jack. Just a bad dream."

Jack frowns, his eyes flickering over every inch of her like she was about to crumble into dust that he would likely encapsulate in a gem around his neck for all of eternity-- which was more disturbing then comforting at the moment. "Do you need me to stay with you?" But then she senses the real discomfort—it's not him. He's perfectly good. True, and loving. Real, in his gentle strokes of her hair. So, the real issue was the... thing across from her.

She flashes a half smile at him in response. "No it's okay, love you."

Jack smiles back, warm and an offer of salvation in the strangeness of the hour. "If you're sure." He stands at her nod, pressing a final kiss to the crown of her head and followed behind Jason. Her dad had slipped away as soon as no threat was perceived. "Love you too."

"God that's so gross. Bye pretty boy!" Emmy waved at him, a smile thats all barbed wire and dark bruises.

Madison wanted nothing more than to move heaven and earth just to crush the vision before her. "Don't look at him." And it comes out in a snap, heat licking behind her teeth.

Emmy's face turns to her, slowly, unreadable in the dim light of the moon and the diffused glow of the city. She's much more frightening like this. Guarded instead of swinging. "Why? Scared I'm gonna hurt him?"

Madison scoffs, "You're not real. You can't climb from my memory to do any damage in my world." She says sliding back against her pillows but never enough to draw her eyes from the thing across from her.

Emmy tilts her head, eyes inconceivable like she's pulled shudders over them. "Aren't I real? Im here. I can touch things. I can speak to you." She slams the photo down for emphasis, and Madison prides herself in the way she only slightly jolts.

Madison's eyes narrowed. "You're not a ghost."

"Maybe not. But I haunt you."

"Of course you do. In every thing I do." And she wants to take it back, the words sucker punched out of her from the glow of dark eyes that screamed spineless, weak, soft. Flashes of those same words spat between the cover of green lockers and text messages blurred in the front of her mind.

"You blame me for things I didn't do." Come's the timbering reply.

"I blame you for every unjustified punishment you flayed me with. Your words, and your actions. They ruined me."

Emmy laughs, and it used to be such a pretty thing; tinkering and soft. It used to fill her with a warmth that carried through her veins until it melded into maple. But in the dark of night, hazed by sleep and anxiety that suffocates, it's haunting. It feels like loosing her, all over again. A darkness that can't be unbidden by any amount of sterile lighting or pleads. To—

"If you want to think that, you can. But it's a weak defence."

Madison grinds her teeth, refusing to rise to the bait.

"It's weak, to blame everything on someone else. What is it my therapist always said?- Redemption is not about pain, Emmy. It's about the good we do, not the price we pay. So why do you still think that your suffering is something special? Like you're a hero for not stabbing me for being mean? That because of who I was to you--sixteen years old, that that's excuse enough to be a shit person?"

"I was sixteen too."

"Oh, so that means you're unique."

Madison, belatedly realizes this is ridiculous. She's arguing with her pysche-- sleepwalking, or sleep paralysis, likely, so she flips onto her side and juts her foot out to cool her body temperature with the familiar sooth of the untouched side of the mattress.

There's no more talking, but she knows Emmy is there. Watching. She doesnt sleep. But she wont give the past the benefit of attention, either.

—————

An hour later, Madison is sitting at the table with a grimace on her face as she. stares at the bottle in hand. The liquor tastes... it says pineapple mojito on the wrapper. But what pineapple has such a noxious yellow colour, nearly glowing in the low light of the kitchen. It was cool in her mouth, like the thickness of mango juice, and went down with the taste of soap that settled into coconut and blossomed into... boot polish?

She doesn't flinch this time, when a familiar blonde appears sitting atop her kitchen table, elbow on an upright knee.

"You can't drink me away, you know." She grins, mouth bloodied like the one of the character's in Jack's Resident Evil game. "I've tried."

Madison slams the bottle down with more force than necessary, moving with leaded limbs to rub at her eyelids with the pads of her fingers.

"Why are you here? Do I need antipsychotics?" There's a low chuckle from closer, the fridge maybe. Then there's rifling-- notably the yoghurt containers getting caught on the cardboard in the procured haste to free the snack. "Do ghosts even eat?" She asks when the silence gets to be too much. Maybe this is her own personal brand of hell, dying and awakening to the eternity of high school subjected abuse. And now, it was just a quiet evil that followed her around and ate up her money.

"Wow, what a surprise. You're rude toward a minority."

A hairpin trigger, pulled, Madison looks up blearily at the figure illuminated by the fridge light. Emmy looks so at ease-- older, no longer fumbling with a body of an unsure and hyperactive teenager, but confident, poised in her movements. She isn't so horrifying now that she herself is less afraid. Her eyes were still dark-- did she dye her hair, or was it always such a bronze tinted blonde? It suited her weirdly perfect. Complimented the stained blood around her mouth, too.

Madison looks down to her bottle, wondering if it's food colouring or another poison that causes that bright yellow lurking below. "Why are you here?"

"You called. I come."

Madison doesn't know what that means, but Emmy's voice offers no invitation to question it freely. She focuses on making small circles with the tip of her index finger on the table instead. Waits. She's used to waiting, for Emmy to make the move. To hold her hand when everyone that mattered wasn't looking. To offer placating words in repose of verbal abuse. And its--

She was mean. But she also... she was also someone that stood in the fridge light, deciding whether or not yoghurt would disgust her or not the second she opened it and then decided on a string cheese instead. She was someone that fawned over photos of herself, younger. She was gentle, even with the gore She wasn't all bad.

"So," Emmy dragged her from her reverie, dropping the spoon down beside the unopened container of yoghurt, seemingly still deciding as she eyed the duo with hands on her hips. "What's wrong with you? Insurance too expensive, nails too brittle, mom too bitchy?"

"She died."

"Oh. Huh." Emmy blinks at the spoon. Decides to forgo it, as she tears open the yoghurt and begins slurping. "Sorry."

She's not-- they never got along. But thats fine. Madison and her mother never did much, either.

"S'okay. Not gonna send you to hell for poor tasting jokes or you'd be there already."

Eyes, twinkling like the most dangerous parts of the sea catch hers, "Aren't I now?"

Madison catches some of the sugary poison from the cupids bow of her lips, shrugging, "Lying is a sin. Again, can't send you to hell."

The other woman hums putting the unused spoon back into its rightful drawer, shooting over her shoulder, "Who knew you had such taste for ghost jokes. I'm stealing them."

"Another sin. Two for two, do I get the third for free?"

Emmy's lips flicker just barely, before they smooth into that all natural sneer. "You have wanted me dead for a very, very long time. Everyone knows that. So why do you still think of me?"

Madison shrugs, digging into the comfort of the bar stool with her nails. The circling index digs into the lacquer. "I don't know."

"You do. You just don't want to remember."

"I haven't been able to forget." She snips, her finger permanently etching a line in the table.

Emmy's laugh is dark. Twisting metal and rolling pennies on the back of the tongue. "You ever wonder why I was the way I was?'

"It was easier to not symphatize with the devil."

"Maybe." She sighs, quiet for a moment. "But I wasn't born mean. I didn't treat you badly out of malice."

"You didn't have to react to every feeling." Madison can't help but say. Emmy doesn't snap like she used to. She just nods, her face even and drawn.

"No. I didn't have to. But you can't blame a person you no longer know. You can't blame someone who was drowning for lashing out for any kind of reel."

Madison looks down to the tabletop. The air is too thick, her heartbeat too loud in her own ears. She releases a breath of her own, heavy and stilted. "I didn't help. I was rude. Quick to anger, I guess."

Emmy chuckles humourlessly. Madison looks up at the sound, and sees the twinkle in those dark eyes. They're different— softer. Eyes she had fallen for, when she was nothing but nerves and indecision. There's no blood on her lips now, when she gives a fleeting smile.

"It's not your fault."

Madison blinks.

"What?"

Emmy looks younger, now— like beneath the dwindling moonlight and the glow of the fridge, she's aged back to that sweet sixteen. Awkward, unsure, emotional. But her eyes are that same steady strength— unwavering despite Madison's response to flee.

It's written all over her face she's sure. She's never been good at hiding when she wants to leave.

"It's not your fault. What happened."

Madison blinks, her eyes bleary with unshed tears that she can't consciously remember forming. Emmy is a twisting vision— dark as night, quicksilver like a teen, and... her. The soft, flaxen haired one who looked at her with such tenderness.

Emmy circles the table, and Madison can vaguely recall the memories before the war— them two in the kitchen, sharing hoodies and feeding her childhood dog treats. Quiet, glowing smiles in privacy. The hard set jaw of a child under her own inquisition in public.

"My death. It's not your fault."

"I—I could have done more. To stop it."

Emmy shakes her head. A mess of black, bronze and flax. "No. You couldn't. Two children can't save each other from a place adults made unsafe. A child cannot bear the burden of another child's life."

And her voice— there's no edge. It's light, like it used to be beneath cotton sheets in the cool spring before global warming dragged and misfortune hung. Emmy is warm, here. In this kitchen, in her bedroom, in her mind. She isn't leaden with the exterior that Madison remembers—- that she forced her to bear in death in hopes it would be thick enough to assuage her own bleeding. But it wasn't.

Her tears are heavy on her cheeks, burning a trail only those fingertips had taken.

"Why.. why did you have to die?"

Emmy smiles, it's half of one and pained. But it's real. It's normal. It's not fabricated by a preconceived notion, or what she had begged to see in its place. "It gets very tiring to lick your own wounds. Some poeple..." eyes, not dark like the dangerous parts of the sea but wading at the surface that showed nothing but life, dipped to their edges then back. "Some souls aren't ready to be born yet. That's no one's fault. But some souls, some are waiting to be called home."

Her brother, father— oh.

One door. Heavy. Room filled with little trinkets. Cotton sheets. Worry. Familiarity.

Hospital.

Emmy's eyes are rimmed with a quiet plea. "The world needs you alive, too."

Her throat is thick with cotton when she swallows. "But.. you're not there."

"I haven't been for a while."

"So you're not... real?"

Emmy shrugs. "Who's to say? If I can soothe you— I am as real as you are."

Madison frowns. "I didn't.. you were mean, weren't you? Did I make that up?"

"No, you didn't." Emmy reaches out, her touch nothing more than a buzzing memory against her cheek. "I was mean. I was young, and sick. That's no one's fault. But it's okay to move on. It's okay to let me go."

Dark eyes, and light all the same drift to where Madison can make out the sleepy figure of Jack on the visitor's chair, face tucked into the palm of his hand and yawning. His eyes were heavy, trying to focus on the body in the bed but his own body begging for rest.

"It's okay, to love. To grieve and to heal, and to feel affection all the same. You can love me, mourn me, and love him and cherish him, too."

Madison looks back to Emmy, who's slowly stood. Smile strong and gaze fixed, warm.

"Will I see you again?"

Emmy's head tipped to the side, eyes twinkling with mirth. "Oh, yeah. When it's your time, I'm going to bother you forever."

"So there's an afterlife?"

Emmy sighs, exasperated but fond as she bends to press a buzzing kiss to the crown of brown hair, stepping back without breaking gaze. "There is no plain of existence where I wouldn't find you." Then, with that same guileless smile, "to haunt you of course."

Madison glared, soft and tired as she settles back into the bed beneath her. It feels faint, but there. Real.

"I love you, Em."

Emmy smiles, and opens the door. "Live for me; that's love at its purest."