InsaneJournal

Who: Rosalie
What: Finding out about Jude
Where: Some sidewalk somewhere
When: Afternoon, a couple days after this
Warnings: None

The phone was ringing, a hollow sort of buzzing tone as she held it too hard against her ear. Rosalie was on a sidewalk somewhere between Bellum and the nearest Starbucks. Walking home. Drinking coffee. Doing perfectly normal things that perfectly normal people did every day.

Like calling their grandmothers. Rosalie's grip on her cup tightened as the line rang for the fourth time. Maybe she wouldn't pick up. Amelie Belvedere had a busy schedule, after all. All of the-- committees and boards and philanthropy. The gossiping. Running the family like some sort of aristocratic military operation-

"Rosalie." The voice was crisp and cool as it interrupted her thoughts. "Have you decided to come back to us?"

"I--," Rosalie's pace slowed and an agitated hand twisted into the strands of hair at the base of her neck, pulling harshly at them in a vague attempt to help her focus on the conversation. "Bon matin, Grand-mere." She had eaten lunch at least two hours earlier. "Not-- I mean afternoon. It's--,"

"Stop stammering, darling," came an irritated sigh. "Be quiet until you can get out what you have to say. And be quick about it; I have a hair appointment in five minutes."

Rosalie, who had bitten her tongue as soon as her grandmother's voice had begun its reprimand, nodded once, realizing almost immediately that the gesture was useless over the phone. "I just- you know the Bells, oui? Or- know of them?"

"Of course I do, darling," with a long suffering sigh. "Four minutes, Rosalie."

"But--," Rosalie didn't bother to continue her protest. Why was she doing this again? Not for Ed, for Jude. "They have a daughter, don't they? Older than me."

"Had," her grandmother corrected sharply. "Yes, it was just tragic, what happened to her." But the words were said with the same formal indifference that she always used, and Rosalie's hand slid down her hair to wrap around the tendrils at the end, tugging at them with frustrated anxiety.

Her face paled and she slowed her pace abruptly. "Had?"

"Yes, darling, she passed away several months ago. She fell down a flight of stairs, I believe. An event I'm sure you'd have been aware of if you had been in New York instead of playing around in France." Her tone turned icy. "And now! That apartment building you live in--,"

Rosalie was no longer listening. She was frozen in the middle of the sidewalk, and the hand not clutching the cell phone had moved to her mouth. Passed away several months ago. That couldn't be right. It wasn't possible. (Not possible like psychics and indoor fog and seeing other peoples' memories.)

"I've... got to go." Her voice sounded hollow as she cut off her grandmother. "It's been five minutes anyway." Blinking up at the nearest street sign, she found that she was only three blocks away from the New York Public Library. That was much closer than her laptop back at Bellum.

Rosalie didn't remember walking there, but one way or another, in ten minutes she was inside at a computer. Jude Leigh Bell.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

There was even an online copy of the obituary, complete with a photo. Jude's parents had not let their daughter's passing go unnoticed. Friend, daughter, fiancée.

It was her. It couldn't be, but it was.

In a sort of stupor, Rosalie made her way back outside and hailed a cab. Instead of riding back to Bellum though, she asked for St. Patrick's. Rosalie wasn't an extraordinarily religious person, although she attended church on Easter and Christmas (most of the time). But she had to do something, anything, because whatever had happened to Jude, it wasn't good.

Inside, she lit a candle for the woman, whether she was dead or alive or some bizarre hallucination entirely.

And only after that did she go home.