Title: "Through the Looking Glass"
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
'Ship: Lusty
Length: one-shot
Summary: For Lucy, there are no more happily ever afters
Author's Note:
Very loose companion piece to "Kissing Lightning," slightly inspired by the 8/2/04 episode and Dusty's now infamous, "I could drown in you." This is a much darker Lucy then we're accustomed to, but bear with me because I think it fits. Again, not having not watched the Lucy/Aaron/Alison relationship, sorry if I fudge any details. Enjoy!
We suffer everyday,
What is it for,
These crimes of illusion
Are fooling us all,
And now I am weary,
And I feel like I do
It's only you,
Who can tell me apart,
And it's only you,
Who can turn my wooden heart
- "Only You," Portishead
He thinks she still spins fairytales for dreams, magical fantasies full of princes and princesses and happily ever afters, that she's still waiting for her white knight to come and sweep her off her feet and make her feel safe, like Jax did for Brenda when she still believed in things like soap operas and romance novels and true love and soulmates—all the things she held dear before Aaron broke her heart and her father betrayed her trust and her world collapsed around her.
Dusty doesn't think she understands those kinds of things, mean, messy things like betrayal and lies, doesn't think a pretty, perfect princess could comprehend the darker side of life. But she's not pretty, not in the ways that count—and she's not a princess—and she's far from perfect. She might be on the surface, with her designer clothes and long legs and silky hair, but inside—she's ugly, or at the very least, broken…just like him.
When she was a little girl she still believed in fairytales, dreamed of a dashing young knight to carry her away on his white horse into happily ever after. Her Daddy would sit her on his knee and read her bedtimes stories, whisper that someday her prince would come along and make all her dreams come true. "Someday, Lullabye, you're gonna meet the perfect boy and get married and have babies and make me the proudest grandpa in all the land. And if he hurts you, I'll kill him." She'd spent the next ten years dreaming of the day her world of make-believe would be real .
And then Aaron had come into her life and she'd thought she'd found a prince, a beautiful boy with strong arms and heated burning in his eyes and a special smile just for her. Aaron, who said he'd love her forever and took her on grand adventures and guarded her dreams. Aaron, who made her feel safe and loved above everything else. She'd thought she'd found happily ever in his arms, her back pressed against the hard ground and the stars shimmering above and his mouth melting into hers. And then Alison had come and said there'd been a mistake, she was gonna have a baby and Aaron was gonna do the one thing his father couldn't, give his child a family and a home, and all her dreams turned into a living nightmare. There were tears and regrets and Aaron whispering against her throat, "I'm so sorry, Lucy. God, I'm so sorry…" But it didn't matter, because her perfect prince was all wrong, his silver lining tarnished and chipped, his sparkle dimmed…her happy ending shattered as quickly as it started.
She got over it, eventually, because she loved them both in spite still, and now Alison calls her, after a meeting with the caterer or shopping for a wedding dress, and chirps and raves about the beautiful forever she has planned with Chris, she smiles and nods and tells Ali how blessed she is, when inside her heart dies a tiny bit. Because forever doesn't last, she knows that better then she knows most things, that even the best of intentions only end in heartbreak and pain, that the first boy she ever loved would always be the first boy to break her heart.
She tries to think back to the last time she was happy, truly happy, when her father's smile reached his eyes and her mother didn't gaze wistfully after every blonde-haired boy walking down the street. And she knows she can pinpoint Bryant's death as the moment her life skyrocketed into Hell, the moment shadows crept into her mother's eyes and her father's heart seemed to wrap itself in ice. She thinks to Rosanna, to Carly, to Alan lying dead and buried beneath the dirt, and wonders what if? What if Bryant hadn't died? What if her father could still feel? What if her mother didn't cry every June and pretend everything was always okay? Would her father be building a family and a future with Rosanna and Cabot? Would Alan still be alive and sailing into the sunset with Sierra on deck? Would she still think things would always work out in the end?
But Bryant was dead and there was a hole in her heart she'd tried to fill with beautiful boys like Aaron and Clark and every other country-club type who'd walked her way. Boys that could walk the walk and talk the talk, but never replace the boy who'd always mattered to her most. She remembered her brother through a haze of memories, a boy with bright blue eyes and golden hair and a blinding smile who'd run with her on the beach and built forts with their mother's best linens. The boy she worshipped and had taught her everything she knew about life and loyalty and friendship and betrayal. The last time she'd talked to him she'd never heard him sound so happy, so unaware the end was rapidly approaching. "I met a girl, Luce," he'd said and she'd felt his smile through the phone line. "She's amazing, really amazing. She's the one, Luce. I'm telling you, the one. I'm gonna marry this girl, just you wait and see." She'd been young then, and stupid, and spent the afternoon dreaming of a new sister with hair like flames and a crazy mom who was gonna marry her dad. Then Billy had arrived in Oakdale to keep his cousin company, Billy whom she'd loved almost as much as her brother, with his simple smile and gentle hands. He'd taught her Marco Polo and baseball and spent long hours playing Scrabble when Bryant was off with his latest flame and she was too young to go out alone. Then the news had arrived: car accident, internal injuries…and then just her mother's screams. She'd arrived in Oakdale dry-eyed and bitter and when she'd met Jennifer Munson, the sister-in-law of her dreams, it had taken everything in her not to slap the self-righteous smile off her face. And Billy…she doesn't have a cousin, not really, not anymore.
Sometimes, she'll be out at the County Club and see Jennifer, laughing and smiling in the candlelight, Jordan's fingers trailing down her cheek in a gentle caress, and it's a lesson in restraint when she doesn't storm over and grab Jennifer by the hair and scream. "Do you remember, Bryant?" she wanted to yell. "Do you remember the boy who loved you more then he loved himself, the boy who died because you couldn't love him back?" She wanted to Jennifer to pay, for the failed marriages and tears and broken dreams, for destroying the world she'd lived in all her life, for driving Bryant to get into that car and end his life too soon. But she didn't, because she wasn't raised to be that kind of girl, and deep down inside she could still see the good in people, still feel pity for the girl who'll spend the rest of her life with Bryant's blood on her hands, the guilt of his death haunting her steps. Because deep down inside, the part she hides and keeps safe, is the only pure part of her left. The part that can still love and laugh and forget all the pain in her past, the part that can still watch Dusty with wide eyes and gum up the works and mess everything up—the part that's still a kid, when everything else about her is pushing middle-aged.
She knows Dusty thinks he's too old for her, too jaded and dirty, that he'll tarnish her pristine skin when he lays a hand on her. She knows he thinks he's bad for her, that he's so angry and twisted inside he'll only screw her up and break her heart. But her heart's already been broken and her insides are twisted too, caught in a web of lies and death and betrayal too intertwined to ever untangle. She wants Dusty to know these things, that she understands shattered dreams and broken hearts, that she's not the naïve princess he thinks she is. She needs him to understand that when she looks into his eyes she doesn't see a prince or a savior or a knight in shining armor. She just sees a man whose past is just as raw as her own, a man who's nothing like the shining prince she once loved, but gives her the one thing Aaron couldn't…peace.
She used to believe in happily ever after, but she doesn't want that, not anymore, because she's no longer the naïve girl who believes whatever boy says all the right words and does all the right things will make her happy. What makes her happy is a man with gray in his hair and hooded eyes, a man who says he could drown in her because she sees him for what he really is— but he sees her too, messy and complicated and nothing near perfection. Two peas in a pod, two hearts at peace…and its own twisted way, a happy ending after all.
So, what do you think?