Illusion

ana barton

This is an original story that’s based on a dream I had some time ago.

ALL CHARACTERS, NAMES, and EVENTS are fictional in nature or may be based on personal friends and occurrences in my life. Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental.

This is part of the monthly fic challenge posted at the ML.

January: anything goes, as long as it’s set in the month of January and that pairings, if any at all, are to be hetero; no yuri/yaoi please.

Deadline: 31 January 2005

Rated PG-13 for language and content

Warning: Angst, death, attempted suicide, mention of sex but nothing graphic

January Challenge:

Last Kiss

-o-o-o-

This was turning out to be the beginning of a very good year.

Where oh where can my baby be?

The Lord took her away from me

She’s gone to heaven so I’ve got to be good

So I can see my baby when I leave this world

Sixteen-year-old Dominic laid back on his bed with a wide smile. After painful weeks spent in pins and needles waiting, he finally got his answer yesterday when Clare agreed to be his steady girlfriend. They’d gone out later that day with their friends and even their heckling couldn’t remove the grin on his face the whole day.

And today was New Year’s Eve and she’d accepted his offer that they spend the day together, just the two of them. Clare had been reluctant at first but he’d explained that his family had this superstition, if you will, that what you do on the last day of the year is what you’ll spend the next year doing, and he wanted to be with her.

We were out on a date in my Daddy’s car

We hadn’t driven very far

His motorcycle was in the shop so Dominic borrowed his father’s car to use on his date with Clare. The usual date fare of dinner and a movie would have to take a back seat because he had special plans for them tonight: he wanted her to see stars.

Well, not literally since they could do that on a clear night of stargazing, and not figuratively since he figured they’d get to those “stars” when they will and not before. Though for obvious reasons, he hoped those “stars” would be soon.

One of his friends’ fathers made fireworks for a living and Dominic worked summers there with his other friends so he had an ample supply of the items, as well as enough knowledge and understanding of the proper care and handling of such dangerous materials.

There on the road, straight ahead

A car was stalled, the engine was dead

I couldn’t stop so I swerved to the right

Dominic could tell she was impressed with the display. They’d gone to an old abandoned warehouse and it was appropriately dark for his fireworks display, thanks to his friends who’d placed the necessary tarp on the windows and holes in the walls. Clare was reclining on the floor, the blanket they’d brought around her shoulders and she was ooh-ing and aah-ing over his light display.

He joined her on the blanket after he’d set off the final set and this one was a long series of colored fireworks. She opened the blanket to him and he snuggled in with her, content for the moment to hold her in his arms as they gazed at the bright lights together.

The last firework died out and they were plunged into darkness. Dominic groped for the dimmed lantern beside them and turned it up a touch before turning to her. She was, he thought, the prettiest girl in their class, with her short strawberry blonde hair and the lightest green eyes he’d ever seen adorning her pretty heart shaped face. It definitely didn’t hurt that she was a cheerleader, class president, and the vice president of the Honor’s Society – Beauty and Brains, a perfect girl!

She smiled at him then placed a slender hand on his face. Something passed between them and he found himself pushing her gently to lie on the floor.

I’ll never forget the sounds that night:

The screaming tires, the busting glass

The painful scream that I heard last

He literally felt like a new man. He was a new man.

Dominic couldn’t stop grinning, gripping their joined hands on his thigh as he drove them home. She was talking about something or the other but his auditory senses couldn’t comprehend the sounds passing through her lips… those immensely kissable pink lips.

Clare squeezed his hand and she chuckled when he turned to her with a slightly dazed look.

Where oh where can my baby be?

The Lord took her away from me

She’s gone to heaven so I’ve got to be good

So I can see my baby when I leave this world

If only he had been paying attention… if he’d been more conscientious… if he’d been looking at the road properly, then this probably wouldn’t have happened. As it was, he hadn’t been paying attention, he hadn’t been conscientious, and he hadn’t been looking properly.

And she was dead, because of him.

When I woke up the rain was pouring down

There were people standing all around

It was officially declared an accident and Dominic was cleared. Her parents visited him in his hospital room and personally told him the news. They didn’t blame him. The other driver was held accountable for negligent homicide and he was already in police custody.

He tried to ask them for their forgiveness, but he couldn’t speak. Big fat tears were rolling down his face and Clare’s mother took him in her arms as they cried together.

Something warm falling to my eyes

But somehow I found my baby that night

Her funeral was beautiful, or so he was told. His doctors didn’t let him go to the funeral because of his injuries and his parents went in his stead. Dominic was left alone for the day in his room and he spent it brooding on dark thoughts.

Why did he have to be the one to escape relatively unscathed? A concussion was relatively unscathed compared to death, and what were a few internal injuries anyway? So what if one of his broken ribs punctured a lung?

Why did she have to die?! Why couldn’t he have died instead?! She didn’t have to die!

It wasn’t supposed to be this way! They were supposed to live happily ever after! They were supposed to go to University with their friends and after graduation they would marry and have the requisite two and a half kids and a house with the white picket fence.

This wasn’t right… he had to make it right… How can he make it right?

I lifted her head, she looked at me and said,

“Hold me darling just a little while.”

Dominic had hazy recollections of the next few days. He thought he heard his parents, especially his mother, but he couldn’t be sure. The next thing he saw after the darkness was the white ceiling of a hospital room, and there was someone waiting for him to wake up and it wasn’t his parents or any of his doctors.

He resented him at first sight. Who did this bastard think he was, asking him all these questions and pretending to be his friend? He knew who his friends were and this bastard wasn’t one of them.

I held her close, I kissed her our Last Kiss

I found the love that I knew I had missed

It was a long and arduous process but he recovered, physically, mentally, and emotionally. His psychiatrist prodded and questioned, sometimes forced, until Dominic saw a motivation to get better and he grabbed it with both hands. He would get better; he would put this episode in his life behind him – but never forget, that was very clear – and move on to live his own life.

It didn’t matter if it would take months or years, only that he would get better.

It’s what Clare would’ve wanted for him to do.

Well now she’s gone even though I hold her tight

I lost my love, my life, that night

He stood in front of her grave, a bouquet of white roses his offering. This was the first time Dominic visited her by himself. He’d come before, of course, with his parents, with her parents, with both sets of families, with their friends, but this was the first time he would be alone with her.

It was New Year’s Eve. Everywhere he could hear the sounds of people’s revelry but here it was quiet, only the occasional muted boom of an explosive firework or the brilliance of a light display. His family and her family had understood his need to be with her today, and hadn’t put up too much of a fuss, except his mother who made him put on a woolen sweater over his already thick shirt and a fleece jacket to protect him against the cold.

Dominic grinned. A few months ago, he couldn’t even consider laughing at anything.

He still held on to his family’s belief that what you do on the last day of the year is what you’ll spend the next year doing. And he wanted to spend this day with Clare, one final time, just the two of them.

Where oh where can my baby be?

The Lord took her away from me

She’s gone to heaven so I’ve got to be good

So I can see my baby when I leave this world

Dominic laid out a blanket, laying out his provisions and supplies in front of him. This was definitely going to be a bang up New Year’s for them, he’d made sure of that. He lit the series of bright sparklers he’d set on the ground. This was just the beginning of his light display for Clare, his final goodbye.

-o-o-o-

Dominic hurried over to the bench he and his friends had already claimed as their territory in the whole campus, navigating easily along the crowded hallways with ease thanks to his height. He needed to borrow Joseph’s notes – he shook his head. What was he thinking? The last time he did that, all he got were girl’s phone numbers and addresses! Not that it wasn’t helpful but he really had to study so – Reginald’s notes then, as he was still unclear on yesterday’s lesson.

--bump--

“Eep!”

“Argh!”

Dominic blinked owlishly and looked around at his scattered notebooks, papers, pens, and books.

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!”

A wisp of a girl knelt beside him and hurriedly gathered his things together while babbling about how sorry she was, that she had been in a hurry, that she wasn’t looking where she was walking, and did she mention she was so very sorry? She must be the one he’d bumped into; at least she wasn’t hurt, or she didn’t look hurt.

Dominic put a hand on her arm. “Hey, it’s okay,” he grinned crookedly, pushing up with his elbows. “These things happen. Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

He sat up and rescued his books from the almost trampling they got from a running student.

“Sorry!” the harassed looking student called out while continuing running off.

Dominic acknowledged the apology with a wave and resumed gathering his things. He looked at the girl helping him. She looked younger than the usual freshman, that was for sure. “I haven’t seen you around here before,” he remarked as he helped her stand up.

“Oh.” She blinked and he noticed that her eyes were as black as the blackest night. “I’m not a student here,” she grinned. “I’m a student from the high school department; I’m just visiting some friends of mine. My name’s Katherine, by the way.”

He accepted the handshake and smiled, only then seeing her uniform. “Dominic. Pleased to meet you.”

-o-o-o-

22 January 2005

Author’s Notes:

The song is one of my favorite songs, Last Kiss by Pearl Jam.

Sorry Dominic… the plot popped into my head after listening to the song and you were in the starring role. I had to have some kind of angst as my next submission will be a complete humor fic starring James ;;; the heavens help me…!

But look! I didn’t end it as I first thought it should be ended (so I definitely veered away from an AU rating, HAH!!), and I gave you a happy ending, of sorts… I have to admit though that the ending was inspired by feifu’s Irish Cream submission hehehe

Anyway, here it is, my January submission. Happy reading everyone!

ana J