Skylar James Bale (socialiterocker) wrote in btvsal, @ 2009-12-06 18:44:00 |
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Current location: | Skylar's Home Studio |
Current mood: | discontent |
Entry tags: | bella mcconnell, place: la, plot: future problems, skylar james-bale |
Trying to Make Things OK
Who: Bella and Future!Skylar
Where: Skylar's Home Studio
When: Dec. 7th, 2018
Skylar was sitting in her home studio, playing back a track that Suicide Messiah had recorded recently. Facing away from the door that led into it, she kept replaying it back again and again trying to figure out just what she didn't like about it. Mere sounded great on the guitar, and Rachelle sounded fine on the bass. Chloe was, as always, great on the drums. No, it was the vocal track. Something about the wording of a few lyrics was bothering her. They didn't make a whole lot of sense. Of course, she didn't want to rerecord the track just because she was having problems with grammar. A stupid reason, really. She was so involved in it that she wouldn't have heard if someone came in through the door.
Slowly but surely, Bella was slipping more and more into this old life of hers. As annoying as the press had been in the beginning, the wild rumors that had circulated, the speculations about her return, she was already beginning to tune it all out. A lot of that probably had to do with the fact that she just didn't care about it. She had Damon back and...everything else could be dealt with later. Except, maybe, her parents. It had been weird enough to call up Skylar on the phone, to ask to see her, when...she hadn't even spoken to her since everything with Ben went down. Although, that wasn't true. No. The Bella she couldn't remember, the one whose past, whose life, was a complete mystery to her, she'd probably had no issues with her mother at all. Well, aside from the usual teen rebellions. Or...was that true? Had she ever realized what Skylar had ultimately done to her? Did...it even matter? Someone had shown her the way to the studio and Bella stood there for a moment, looking at her mother who...didn't look like her mother. Well, she did, but...she was so much older than she'd been the last time she'd seen her. God, this whole thing had fucked her up royally. Knocking on the door frame, she cleared her throat loudly.
When Skylar heard the knock, she jumped a little and then looked over to see Bella. The most evident things that were different about her were the slight wrinkles around her eyes (Botox could only fix so much, after all), and the pink, three inch scar down the left side of her face. It went vertical and was close to her hairline. If she had her hair down, it would be less noticeable. In public, she wore good makeup to cover it up but, when alone, she didn't bother. "So, it's really you," she said as she looked Bella up and down.
"It's...really me," Bella said, pushing away from the doorway and doing a little turn. "In the flesh and...alive. I think. Little confused on that, but..." She'd have been lying if she'd said her gaze hadn't been caught by the scar, but she tried not to stare. It wasn't grotesque or anything. Just...noticeable. "I guess I should explain that I really don't remember anything about my past. Well...." She laughed slightly and rolled her eyes. "You probably remember that, right? I mean...it all happened...didn't it?" Had to have. Otherwise...she wouldn't be with Damon right now.
"Yeah, it all really happened." Skylar switched the soundboard off and got up to look at Bella. She remembered when Bella left, too, so she wouldn't know anything about what she did afterward, either. Or who eventually had to put her down. "I remember. So, how do you feel being back?"
"Confused...but I'm sort of getting used to that feeling." The girl's eyes scanned the studio, looking for personal touches, photographs, anything to give her some hint of who Skylar had become. "It's been...informative. I guess you could say. Gotta admit, I never imagined it'd be this...crazy. Wasn't really what I was expecting."
"The paparazzi? You get used to them after a while." There were plenty of pictures around. Some of her and Ben, both young and from recently, so that hadn't ended, and pictures of three different kids in different ages: Bella, and another girl and boy that would be about seventeen and twelve now. Pictures of all of them together and of each one. "I guess it would be strange to jump back into your old life, or new life, I'm not even sure how to look at that."
"Who knows?" She shrugged, still looking around. She could see both Ben and Skylar in the faces of their children. Except for her, of course. That was all Skylar, Gwen and Pat. And it was so easy for her to see it, too. Especially after having known them when they were all...younger. "I'm starting to wonder if there is no old or new...if this was just the way things always were. The way they were meant to be. If you believe in fate, anyway."
"I always wondered if time was as linear as some people claim it is," Skylar said. "There's really no way to know, though." Well, people like Bella might be able to tell her, but even she wasn't sure. "So, you've seen Damon yet?"
That question brought a pause to Bella's lips and her gaze shot back to Skylar. Inhaling deeply, she nodded slowly. "Yeah.... He, um, he wasn't in such great shape when I first got back. But...hopefully...with time...things'll get back to normal. Whatever normal is." She exhaled slowly. "We're moving in together, actually. And...he's been...filling in some blanks where...I didn't even know there should be blanks. It's...confusing." Yeah. She'd said that already.
Skylar nodded. Hearing the two of them moving in together didn't shock her, and Bella was old enough to make her own decisions. "Normal is what you make of it. So, what all did he tell you?"
"Uhhhh." This was the part where Bella got confused...although, maybe it wasn't so confusing. There really was only one explanation. "He told me about Luke. Um. Yeah. That whole thing. And...what you did. That...he hasn't been able to forgive you for it. But...I don't know. I guess, being what we are, I understand. We do what we do for a reason."
"Did he tell you why I did it? It wasn't just because you were a vampire, Bella," Skylar pointed out. "One of my closest friends is a vampire, and I certainly didn't throw a fit just because you were seeing one. I never did."
"I know. I didn't think you would have. I figured you must have had a particular reason and while...he didn't say what it was, he admitted that you did. Just...that it didn't make it any easier. I don't..." She hesitated, made a face, and then rubbed her forehead. "I don't blame you, if that's what you're wondering. I just...the only way I can see any of it happening...is if I go back again."
"That's true. The best way to prevent all of it is to not go back," Skylar said. Usually she was more affectionate with her first daughter, but, knowing that she had just come from a time where she was disgusted with her, well, it was making her standoffish. "Do you want to know why? I understand that you don't blame me, but if you want to know why, well, that might explain it better."
Bella nodded, agreeing that in order to prevent it all...she just had to avoid going back to the past again. Of course, she hadn't had much luck controlling it thus far. "Sure," she said when Skylar asked if she wanted to know why she'd had to kill her. It was still...so weird to think about. Truth be told, she couldn't even begin to imagine herself as a vampire...or worse, as an evil vampire. It seemed...ludicrous. It was quite possible that there was some sort of disconnect, an inability to actually associate herself with this thing Damon - and now Skylar - claimed she'd become.
"Luke was the one who turned you, not Damon, like you had planned. He had hoped to take you away and, well, I guess help you control your instincts. Vampires had done it before. Him, Mere, Elle, they all pulled it off in different ways. Well, Luke sort of beat him to the punch. He had some obsession with you that we all underestimated." Skylar sighed. "Damon couldn't take you being evil. It sort of broke him. You lost it a little yourself. You wanted to save yourself from the pain of having to go through that, so you decided to kill yourself." She paused. "Well, not yourself as in you, but yourself as in little Bella. Murder, not suicide." Skylar looked away. "Well, I couldn't let that happened." She turned back around to face Bella. "You gave me this in the fight," she said, running her finger down the scar. "I didn't want to. I had to protect you from yourself."
She knew she'd tried to be flippant when Damon had been telling her the basics, but she just couldn't do the same to Skylar. She was quiet for a while, digesting everything her mother had said. Like the part about the vampire thing being planned...at least between her and Damon. Could she imagine that? Maybe. Not right now, but later down the line, when she was older? What she felt for him...it was...timeless. Would she have eventually let him turn her if it meant they could be together forever? Surprisingly enough, her instinctive answer to that...scared her a little. But that wasn't the point. Everything...came back to Luke. She wanted to kill him. If it was the last thing she ever did, she would. Of course, history according to Skylar didn't work out that way. Which...brought her to the main point. Her gaze flickered to the family pictures again. Killing herself? would she ever...ever...feel so desperate? If she couldn't be with Damon, would that be a reason to end it all? The voice in her head was silent, but despite that, she wasn't insane enough to actually think she'd ever do something like that. At least...not while she was still human. "You did what you had to do. I...I wouldn't have wanted you to do anything differently."
She nodded. "I knew that. I knew that, if you were in your right mind, you would have been OK with it. It was the only way I was able to do it. Damon kept insisting that he could have done something if I hadn't acted that way. Then again, he didn't have someone threatening to kill his daughter, so I'm not sure he could have seen it from my point of view. I didn't want to do it, though. It was the last thing I wanted." She wiped at her eyes, trying to catch tears before they could come down.
She knew Damon had probably held onto hope as tightly as he could. Wouldn't she do the same thing? If he...if he somehow changed, wouldn't she try to save him? And she knew, could see, that it hadn't been something easy for Skylar, either. Stepping further into the studio, her motions were a little awkward as she wrapped her arms around her mother's thin shoulders. "It's okay," she said. "If you hadn't...I wouldn't be here right now. You did the right thing. You did the only thing you could do."
Skylar hugged her back, knowing how awkward this had to be for her, knowing what she had been feeling before she left. "I know," she said, "but it's different hearing it from you and having to tell yourself it over the years. Watching you grow up, only to know what I'm going to have to do."
It was weird. She didn't honestly believe, no matter what she'd said or implied before, that Skylar would be a bad mother. She still had her reservations about Ben's influence, but that was neither here nor there right now. The thing was, no matter how great Skylar had been...this was what they were reduced to. She couldn't remember the times Skylar had rocked her to sleep or kissed her skinned knees. She could only remember how distant she'd felt from her, how disappointed in the whole situation with Ben and Gwen, how...betrayed, in some weird way. Even so, it didn't change the fact that her mother loved her. She could see that too. "I'm here now. And...maybe it doesn't have to happen." She tried to sound hopeful. "Maybe we can just...start fresh. The first day of the rest of our lives. That kind of thing. It'd be great if we could all just be...happy."
"I'd like that," Skylar said, finally pulling away and letting Bella breathe properly. She knew that this Bella would still have reservations about things. If only she could remember how great Ben was with her growing up, and her siblings, for that matter. Maybe now she'd get to see. "I'd like to be happy, all of us."