# Past Redemption

Title: Past Redemption
Status: Complete
Characters: Anon, Samantha, Ripley
Rating: SFW
Classification: One Shot
Author: Cobalt_Blue_Sphere
Summary: Too much happened too fast. Too many mistakes were made. The one at the center of it all decides to visit her one last time.
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I didn’t know how long it had been since that black day. I’d been holing myself up in my apartment. Nobody wanted to talk to me, and I couldn’t blame them.
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Everything was too far gone now, and it was all my fault. The web of misery I’d wrought stretched far. A half dozen families personally affected. A few dozen direct relations. A hundred-odd friends and acquaintances. All the students at a school that was now on the map for what could only be called a national disaster. I was pretty sure my own family were unaffected by what had happened, though. They hadn’t cared to call while I was in hospital, at least. So it hadn’t impacted them, for whatever that was worth. There was that.
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In my introspection of late, I’d realized things could never be the same again after this. Nothing could. There was no more help for it. No more hope for things to change. The line could never be uncrossed. In Fang’s wake, my life had become a quiet, reflective nightmare where nothing happened.
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I remember I’d used to dream of nothing happening to me. Of hiding away from the world. What I wouldn’t give to be able to go back to those times before I ever met Fang, before I ruined everything. Was that a selfish thought? I supposed so. Didn’t really matter anymore. Either way, it was weird that the time I’d spent at Rock Bottom now seemed preferable.
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I was beyond saving, I knew that for a fact. That was half of the reason why I’d finally come out of my hideaway to visit Fang in her... resting place. The solace of the dead who couldn’t judge me anymore was preferable to the accusations of the living. The words I knew they’d say if they ever saw me. The questions I didn’t have any appropriate answers for. How on earth could I answer what they’d ask of me? I had nothing. I was nothing, compared to the enormity of what had happened. It was all beyond me now.
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The other half was that I knew I couldn’t hide forever. The world called me, asking me to forget, to move on, to do better next time. I didn’t want to – I couldn’t. I couldn’t just leave Fang behind like that. She was worth remembering. Worth holding onto, even... even now. I didn’t judge her for what she’d done.
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The quiet earth that held her coffin didn’t judge me, either.
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That was why I’d come here with the tools I had. She would understand. Naser was right next to her... hell, he’d get it too. He’d been a bro.
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“Sorry, Naser. I let you down,” I whispered helplessly as I looked at his headstone. “I let you down and you paid for it. I don’t even really know what I did wrong, but I know... I know it was too much. Sorry doesn’t cut it, I know, but... I just don’t have anything else.”
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Nobody answered. Of course.
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I turned to Fang’s grave next. It, too regarded me silently.
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‘Here lies Lucy. Heaven restores you in light.’
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Lucy. Her real name. She’d been Lucy before, hadn’t she? I’d only ever known her as Fang. Were they the same person?
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I didn’t know what Lucy was like. I knew what Fang was like. She was... beautiful. Precious. Willing to connect, even with someone like me who only fucked up his connections. It had been her undoing, as she’d opened up and promptly been eviscerated from the inside by the poison I hadn’t even realized I’d been feeding her. I’d been like a caustic drip feed to her, ruining her life through nothing but meagre proximity. I’d gotten too close to a living being, and she’d paid the price.
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She’d been... soft. Too soft. Receptive. Vulnerable. Too easily turned against her own self, without even realizing –
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I shook my head as I became aware of the wicked thoughts creeping across my treasonous brain. That... was no way to think of her. She didn’t deserve that. Especially not when it was my fault.
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I was trying to think of something to say to her when a sound snapped me out of my reverie. Footsteps.
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“What the hell are you doing here?” Fang’s dad. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The living had found me, just as I’d known they would before the end.
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Dully I looked up to see both of her parents standing there, a dozen feet away. The titan of a pterosaur was glaring at me hatefully, clearly only barely held in check by his dimunitive wife’s iron grip on his arm. She, too, didn’t look exactly happy to see me.
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“Ripley, dear...”
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“You little piece of shit. You’ve got some nerve standing there.”
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“’m sorry,” I mumbled under my breath. Didn’t care if he heard me. Didn’t matter if he did or didn’t, I supposed. Sorry wouldn’t soothe either of them. Sorry wouldn’t bring her back. Sorry didn’t matter to her where she was.
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“You’re sorry? You’re fucking sorry?” Ripley seethed. He did hear me, then. “You think that fixes anything, huh? That you’re sorry?”
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“No.” I whispered.
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“My kids are both dead!” The massive dino’s roar echoed through the whole graveyard, Samantha cringed away, covering her ears, and birds in every direction took fright and flew away. “I’m not fucking stupid. You show up, and just like that they’re gone – and you disappear. I know you had something to do with it! What the fuck did you do!?”
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A few short weeks back, hearing him raise his voice like that would probably have put the fear of God into me something fierce. Today, everything was just numb, and I hardly felt it.
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“I tried to help her.” I murmured. No sense beating around the bush. That was exactly why they were dead. I looked down to the graves; my confession was as much for them as anyone else. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I tried to help her. I’m sorry.”
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“You tried to –” Ripley snarled, furious incredulity colouring his voice red. “What exactly did she need your help with so badly, huh? And how the fuck did your help turn her into – into this?”
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“I don’t know.” It was the truth. Everything I’d said worked for me. How had it gone so wrong? Didn’t matter anymore, I guess. “She hated them. Naomi. Naser. Everyone. I think it was my fault. I don’t know. I thought I could help.”
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“You... You fucking think... You...!” I heard the boiling point reached in those words. Anger bubbling over.
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I heard the massive stomps of his approach. I heard his wife’s panicked pleading.
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I think it was my body that reacted then to keep me safe. A second later, with the gun pointed at the massive ptero, I wondered why it was bothering. It worked, though – he stopped his approach mid-stride before settling back a bit and glaring balefully at me.
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“You going to kill me, too, then?” He sneered.
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I supposed it would be pretty easy at this point. I had him dead to rights, really. But I didn’t want to. I’d caused her family enough pain in my short time here.
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All too stupid to say aloud, so I didn’t. I kept my silence, just held the gun pointed at him as a deterrent. He’d come and take it away if I let him. I still needed this damn thing.
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Samantha drew up beside him, one arm steady on his as they both faced me down. She stood stoic alongside her husband, her eyes fixed on me, a painful mixture of emotions swirling within. Worry, grief, panic, determination. Defiant in the face of danger. It was almost like I was looking at Fang. Like a vision of her twenty years into the future. Like she wasn’t dead in the ground.
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I didn’t know what I was doing now. I only knew I couldn’t break. I had to hold my ground. I had to keep my face blank.
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Why? Couldn’t answer. But I knew it.
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“You’re a piece of shit.” Ripley spat again. “It’s not enough you break our family up once, is it? You had to come back for seconds.”
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“Anon, wasn’t it?” Samantha asked me gently. Kind of sounded like Fang. “You don’t have to do this, dear.”
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“I never wanted to,” Cracks forming. Have to shut my mouth. Can’t stop myself. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
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“It’s going to be alright,” She said soothingly, trying to put a warm smile on to go with her bold lie. “It doesn’t have to get any worse.”
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“I know,” Too weak to keep myself quiet. At least it only came out as a whisper. “I didn’t want it to get this bad.”
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“It’s going to be alright, dear,” She lied again. “Just put the gun down. You don’t have to hurt anyone.”
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“You’re wasting your breath,” Ripley growled. “Look at this spineless shit. If he was going to shoot either of us, he would have done it already.”
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“Ripley...” She said warningly.
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He continued on, unheeding. “It’s all your fault, you little shit. That little trike was right – if she hadn’t met you, none of this would have happened.”
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I didn’t say anything. He was right. What could I say?
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“You were right there with her the whole time! You could have said something to actually help her! You didn’t even say anything, did you?”
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I had. Nothing good though, I don’t think. I didn’t want to think, anyway. I just wanted to let myself crumple then and there, but I managed to stop myself.
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“You fucked everything up! Whatever fucking poison you put in her head – you ruined everything! How the fuck have you got the nerve to stand there and point a gun at me!?”
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It was only by a miracle I managed to keep myself from falling apart under the condemnation. The pressure of my sins given voice from without was unbearable, echoing with the rightful guilty verdict I already had clanging around in my skull.
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It had to stop. It had to give before I fell apart. He knew too much for me to take it. The weight of the truth was too much for me to bear.
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Mercifully, it did. He stopped, giving up on me with a dismissive shake of his head.
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“Let’s go, Samantha. Leave this worthless shit here. Lucy will understand if we come back later.” He turned away, indifferent to the gun still being pointed at him. Slowly, nervously, Samantha did the same, and they walked away towards the graveyard gate.
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Later. They’d come back later. The culmination of my failures would outlive me, a legacy of death that eclipsed my life. They’d see it... later.
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Something broke. A wall broke. I saw the truth behind it.
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It was time I paid for what I’d done. Time I did what I’d come here for. No more stalling.
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“I’m sorry!” On a whim I called out to them. Maybe I could make it just a bit better before I left. One little act of penance, for all it was worth. “You didn’t deserve this. None of you did!”
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It didn’t matter what they had to say. It only mattered they heard. Maybe it would help a little bit.
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I looked down to Fang’s grave.
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‘Heaven restores you in light’.
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Maybe I’d see her there.
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Or maybe I’d be headed straight to hell.
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Maybe I’d see her... there instead.
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I turned my gaze to the implement of my destruction. The bringer of repentance.
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Sleek-barreled. Pretty in its own right, I supposed.
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Redemption at the pull of a trigger.
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I brought it up to my chin.
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Squeezed my eyes shut.
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Saw Fang’s face in the dark behind my eyes. She looked kind of panicked. Couldn’t really tell.
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Would have asked her what she wanted from me, if she was there.
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Didn’t. Obviously. She wasn’t.
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Drew in my last gasp.
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Willed myself to leave it all behind.
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Let out my last breath.
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Squeezed the
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The gunshot rang out through the graveyard, a midnight bell tolling out its sorrow for another soul that never found its worth. A spatter of blood, bone, and brain flew with visceral report, and the empty body dropped heavily to the grass, the guilt gone with its mind. The weapon – the deceiver, the promiser of deliverance – fell out of its hands, its wicked work done.
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Justice had been an impossible dream for a long time. The path of redemption was long behind them all. But judgment still presided, sure and certain, even if those who sought her were not. The final bang of her gavel let her disappointment in her lost child be known.
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Samantha’s horrified, primal shriek pierced the silence that followed.
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“Oh my God! Ripley, call 911!” She shielded herself from the sight with her wings. “Quick!”
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Ripley stood stock still, unable to respond, shock plastered onto his face. The kid had just died right in front of them. Shot himself right before their eyes.
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He hadn’t been lying. He had been sorry.
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How many had died now in such a short time? How had it all gotten out of control? How had it come to this?
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It was too late now. None of those who remained could know for sure exactly how long it had been too late for. The lost probably didn’t know either, not that they could answer if they were asked.