Transparency

I recently finished the second Shades of London book, a beautiful series by Maureen Johnson. This is one of several responses to the cliff-hanger-esqu tragic ending that I wrote/am in the process of writing.

DISCLAIMER: The Shades of London belongs to the lovely Maureen Johnson.

Pairing: Stephen/Rory

Oneshot

-XXX-

"It was just a dream," he sooths, sitting on the mattress. He'd risen swiftly from the chair in the corner when she began to stir, and had hovered anxiously waiting for her to wake from the nightmare. "You're here. It was only a dream, Rory."

She struggles to sit up, fumbling for the lamp. Once the yellowy glow is cast about the room, she huddles against the headboard, taking deep, deep breaths. Pupils dilated, she appears almost wild, like a trapped creature. It takes several minutes for her heart rate to slow. She waits, resting her head on her knees. He murmurs reassurances the entire time.

"You shouldn't have caffeine before bed. It doesn't help," Stephen tells her sternly. Despite the scolding tone, he is softened when looking at her. "And you shouldn't stay up so late, anyways. It's not as though you've got homework to do now."

Rory pushes back several strands of dark hair from her face, closing her eyes. "It was a dream," she says aloud, as though announcing it not only to herself, but the room at large.

"Yes," the Shade agrees in a whisper. Boo and Callum are also awake, in the main room of the apartment. He doesn't wish to disturb them. This moment was between them "Simply a bad dream. You've had a lot of them lately."

On unsteady limbs, Aurora climbs from her bed, fingertips skimming the mattress as she passes. She goes to the bathroom, where she fills the glass by the sink with lukewarm water. Stephen follows, leaning against the doorway to watch her force half of the glass down her throat over the course of a few minutes. Following this, she slashes more water on her face and neck, leaning over the sink. He thinks she might retch – it wouldn't be the first time after dreams like this – but she doesn't. Instead, Rory straightens, staring at her own reflection. Behind her, Stephen also observes. He doesn't like what he sees.

And not because Rory isn't pleasing to look at. With a curtain of dark hair, wide eyes, and a slight, yet full build, she's lovely. He could spend hours alone looking at her face. No, it's the dark circles around her eyes that bother him, and the thinness about her face. And there is a certain strain about her, an aura of stress. As though she's holding so much at once every muscle is tense.

"Pull yourself together," she murmurs lowering her eyes from the reflection.

When she turns back from the mirror, her eyes are closed. He can see beneath the thick lashes that brush her cheeks, a glimmer of tears is beginning to form. He can't have that.

One hand goes beneath her chin, stroking her jaw softly, the other running down the length of her shoulder and arm, catching her waist halfway. Stephen could feel her warmth through the thin fabric of her tank top. His hand pauses just above where the twisting pink line of angry flesh ought to be, held aloft for a moment. Rory tilts her head, shivering slightly. Guilt flashes through him, and the Shade steps aside to allow her to return to bed.

Slipping between the sheets with a sigh, Rory curls into herself, locking her legs together. Stephen cautiously sits beside her on the mattress. She closes her eyes tightly when he reaches out a hand to stroke her hair, fingertips skimming the shell of her ear. Auora opens her mouth, sucking in a heavy breath. Her shoulders begin to shudder.

"C'mon," he urges softly. "Go the kitchen. Get some Cheez Whiz and some tea. Warm yourself up. Boo should be awake…."

But she only seems to fold further into herself, unwilling or unable to rise. Though her eyes are closed, she is painfully awake. The air in the room stills as Rory nuzzles her – his – pillow. She's drowning in his Eton sweats. Tracing the letters on her thigh, he feels a little forward. No move is made to stop him. Yet he retracts his hands anyways. She wouldn't tell him if it bother her regardless.

Even though Rory does not speak, he's well-aware of what she's thinking. She'd been murmuring and sighing thoughts in sleep. Word of regrets.

"I won't have it," he mumbles, stretching out beside her, putting his face into the pillow. When he inhales, he can smell traces of his shampoo and deodorant, but mostly her – vanilla and lavender, a pure, clean scent. She's slept here that long. Not that Stephen has minded in the least.

Aurora turns towards him. Fingers outstretched, she lets them curl around the blank air between them. Stephen wants dearly to pick them up, but he stops himself. Her eyes fall on the wall opposite, just past his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"Don't be."

"I should've…." The girl trails off hopelessly. It's the beginning of a sentence she has started a thousand times over the last month.

"I should have kept you awake."

"I should have insisted you go to the hospital."

"I should have never gotten into that car."

"I should have never gone to that mad woman's house. "

"I should've kissed you ages ago."

"I should have never left Bristol."

"I should have said good-bye."

Every time she starts, he wants to grip her shoulder, look her dead in the eye, and reassure Aurora Deveaux that there was nothing, nothing in the world worth dying for more than her. To him, anyways. He would never want to take back putting his foot down on the gas, slamming into that car, freeing her.

He can remember the moment they recognized Rory in the back seat. Boo had seen her first from her and Callum's vantage point in the alley across the street where they had been waiting for almost fifteen minutes, and shouted so loudly that Stephen nearly wrecked then and there out of fright. As soon as he'd recognized Rory's name from Boo's babbling cries, he whipped 'round to stop the pale, peaked, and visibly nervous girl in the backseat of the black car. Rory.

It hadn't taken another thought beyond the recognition of his friend. His foot hit the gas, and in a few seconds (with Callum and Boo screaming in the background, though he doubted that they'd really minded too terribly after the fact, considering none of them (save himself) died in the crash) the nose of the police car struck the black vehicle.

Callum and Boo appeared from the alley, making short work of the tires. And in no time, she was theirs again.

He'd put Callum and Boo on watch at the therapist's house while he contacted Rory's parents and did a bit of research on this Jane Quaint. He didn't think he could idly watch – no, he'd burst in, all full of rage and fire. A very un-Stephen-like behavior. But he wasn't feeling particularly like himself that day.

"I don't regret anything," he tells her.

Her mouth quivers. A part of him wishes to occupy it in another way. But now isn't the time – though, in his experience, Rory is quite keen on snogging in more serious situations. Instead, he rubs her arm, wishing that he might give her warmth. Sleeping alone with only the thin sheets of his bed, blanket pushed to the end of the mattress, she is cold to the touch.

When her shoulders start shaking again, he sighs. "Rory," he pleads.

"I don't want you to end up like me," he'd said.

"Trust me, I am not going to end up like you," Rory had replied flippantly with the barest of smiles. Her eyes had been so dark. He remembers them tracing over his face that night. Just before she's leaned in.

At the thought he closes his eyes.

The shuddering increases, and he turns closer to the figure quaking against the mattress.

"Please don't," he murmurs.

But she does not hear. Just as she's never heard before over the last month and ten days. Just as she hadn't heard or seen or felt when his breath left his body and he was, for an instant, beside her before being pulled back to the apartment. She never saw him, never heard, no matter what he tried. Regardless of how loudly he called, what he attempted to move, how often he pushed back strands of her dark hair – touching her, apparently, doesn't result in him getting terminated. To Rory and the others, he was nothing but transparent.

Given that, there is little he can do except hover anxiously until Boo slips inside, having heard the heaving sobs from the main room. With that, he moves away from the bed as the other girl hugs Rory tightly, then escorts her into the brightly-lit nook of a kitchen for a cup of decaffeinated tea.

With nothing left to do and no where to really go, the once-shade goes back to pretending to be part of the wallpaper, watching and waiting.

"Waiting" for what, he doesn't really know. There is still a slim chance that he might yet be "found" by the group. It's perfectly possible that ghosts took some time to gain the energy to be visible. Maybe it came with age. Stephen held out the hope that he might be able to take on a more semi-corporal form before his friends.

Though, if not…if he might never be able to be seen by them…

Well, he tries not to think about that.

Standing in the corner, listening to Boo softly offer Rory comforts and reassurances, he pushes these thoughts from the forefront his mind. He must not panic. He must be calm, orderly, researched. There will be a way for him to speak with them again. Even if it's through the plastic slide of a Ouija gameboard. "If that's what it takes…."

Pushing himself off the wall, he moves to stand behind Rory, gently brushing her hair, letting his fingers linger against her spine. Her shoulder blades rise sharply.

Sometimes, such as now, he can almost swear that she feels him and that her body responds unconsciously. Her breath might catch, muscle tense as though she feels his skin skim against her own.

He hopes, anyways.

Maybe, just maybe, one day he can find a way to fight out of this transparency.

-XXX-

Reviews would be grand!