Danielle Drake ♨ Daenerys Targaryen (bendtheknee) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-06-24 23:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | !narrative, * terri, c: danielle drake |
WHO: Danielle Drake (NPC Vincent Drake)
WHEN: June 24, 2018, afternoon/early evening.
WHERE: Los Angeles and San Diego, California
SUMMARY: Danielle seeks closure and gets a little more than she bargained for.
WARNINGS: Spousal loss, abuse, violence.
Going back to visit in California had been something Danielle had thought about a lot over the years. She had thought about it more when Niall and Kiera still lived there, and the urge to return had quieted in the months that they had been in Dunhaven. Now that she was beginning to really move on from the tragedies that had befallen her on the West Coast, she felt the need for more closure than what she had ever allowed herself to have. It was just a few days, and she knew that when she went home - because Dunhaven was home now - she would feel more at peace with the life she had left behind. She had taken a day trip apart from Kiera, Niall, and their parents do take care of some personal business. Her first order of business had been to go to the coffee shop where she had first met Donovan and order the same thing she’d had that very first day, but this time she actually drank her iced coffee rather than unceremoniously spilling it on a stranger in the most awkward meet-cute anyone had ever experienced. As she sipped her coffee and picked at her muffin, she fidgeted with a napkin, tearing it into small pieces. He had been gone for almost exactly four years, and it still hurt. Even through that pain, her heart had finally learned to love someone else. She wasn’t sure that she could have fallen for anyone other than Maxon in the aftermath of what had happened with her first husband. It wasn’t the kind of ending that left someone seeking comfort in another. It had taken time to feel anywhere close to ready for the kind of openness and trust that a relationship required. It had taken someone unerringly patient and understanding like Max. He never asked her to forsake what her first marriage had meant to her, and it was that acceptance of her past that had allowed her to truly give all of her heart to someone else again. Her years with Donovan would always be a part of her, but her present with Max was her hope for the future. After her coffee date with no one, she had taken a walk to their favorite park and found the tree that their initials had been scratched into along with at least a dozen other couples. It was there that she took some of the ashes that she had brought with her to scatter and buried them at the base of the tree. She had sat there for a long time, finally letting herself let this piece of him go, a watery kind of smile tugging at her lips even as her jaw trembled, “I know we promised it would be us until the very end. I know we thought we would get more of our forever.” A few fat tears rolled down her cheeks, and she took a stuttering breath, “Thank you...for one hell of a ride, honey. But I think it’s time. He’s so…so good to me. You would really like him, Donnie. You would like how happy he makes me, and how much he makes me laugh. I love him. I never thought I’d feel that way again, but I do.” She pressed her hand over the cracked bark of the tree, right over their initials, “I’m okay now. I wasn’t for a long time, but I’ve learned so much. It’s possible to have two great loves in one lifetime.” It took her a little time to steady herself, but when she returned to her rental car, she left Los Angeles more hopeful than melancholy. It was that sense of rightness that made her turn over other considerations as she returned to San Diego. Over the two hour drive, she hosted an internal debate with herself over whether or not to return to one more place before concluding her trip with the Malones. She had already visited her mother’s grave to clean it up and place fresh flowers there for certainly the first time in the years since she had left. It was not her that she needed to visit, though her next destination was really more of a place than a who. Before she could talk herself out of it, she had driven past where the Malones lived and into a far more run down part of San Diego on the outskirts of the city where the houses grew smaller and closer together. In this part of the neighborhood, laws became meaningless. She knew that she might draw attention in her rental car, but she didn’t plan to be here for long. Danielle pulled over in front of a small, run down house. The numbers had half-peeled off of the mailbox, and the shutters on the sides of the windows were cracked, some of them missing altogether. The siding of the house was dingy, some of the shingles were missing, and the front steps were cracked and crumbling. This was it. This was the house that had built her and torn her apart. This was the first house. The one that had come before all the others in foster care. It was the one where she had been beaten by father and brother alike...the one where she had hidden sleeves of crackers just to have something to eat and learned to tell the difference between drunken fury and sober cruelty. It didn’t look so much different than when she’d lived there nearly twenty years prior. It was a little dirtier, a little aged, a little less kept up, but it had never been the pride of the neighborhood. Her father hadn’t lived here since he’d been arrested some years ago on charges of aggravated assault, driving under the influence, and breaking and entering. She got out of the car, locking it behind her, and just stared at the front of the house as though maybe she would feel something other than hurt and loss. She hadn’t had a single happy memory in that house, but it was where she came from. She snapped a picture of the front of the house with her phone, and as she lowered it, she caught a glimpse of movement from inside. When the door opened, she didn’t know who she had been expecting. She had thought that the house had been sold at auction or something. The man standing on those broken steps, however, had a familiar face. She was smaller than he was, with rounder features like their mother from the few pictures that she had ever seen. He had their father’s longer face and defined cheekbones, long, blonde hair falling dirty around his shoulders. Now that she had been privy to dreams, he reminded her more of Viserys than ever, and she wondered at how her life could so closely mimic that of her dreams and be entirely real. “Dani?” he asked, voice gravelly. His eyes were bloodshot, and from the looks of him, he was either high or drunk. Possibly both. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree with him. It never had, even after they’d been removed from their father’s care. “I’m leaving, Vincent. Don’t bother to--” but he was already coming down the steps and crossing the small lawn with his longer strides. He was surprisingly steady on his feet. Maybe he was just coming down from a high. “Well, well. My lost little sister finally came back home,” he taunted, reaching out and tugging a little too hard on a strand of her hair. Danielle bristled, “This isn’t home to me.” “Then why did you come here, Dani? You didn’t come back for me,” he chortled, but there was venom in his words, as though he were angry that she hadn’t come for him and he knew it without even having to ask. “I just wanted to see if it was still standing,” she excused, though she still wasn’t entirely sure why she had needed to see it so badly. “Sure,” Vincent snorted, not believing her, “You know...it really hurts my feelings that we weren’t closer. You turned your back the minute you had the chance, though, didn’t you?” “You abused me our entire childhood. I don’t think any sane person would have stayed,” she retorted, chin lifted. “You needed to be punished. You were a no-good brat and I was just trying to show you your place,” Vincent said it with such assurance that for a moment she thought back on her eight year old self and wondered at how he ever thought she deserved how he treated her. “I need to go, Vincent. I wish I could say it’s been good seeing you,” she turned to reach for the car door, but he grabbed her arm with a bruising grip, fingers biting into her skin and yanked her arm harshly so that she stumbled and fell onto the grass at his feet. She was so startled by it that when he descended on her and hit her across the face, for a second she felt helpless again like that little girl that had suffered this same fate so many times before. But she wasn’t that small girl anymore. Even as he knocked a fist against her ribs, she reached and found the self-defense training that she had taken kicking in. She used her surroundings and her position to her advantages, reaching and throwing dirt and rock at his face from the yard, kicking up into his groin, shoving against his hold on her so roughly that he had to choice but to let go. As soon as she was able, she scrambled to her feet. “You bitch,” he growled from his position on the lawn. “I am a bitch,” Danielle agreed with a snarl, “I am a grown woman who doesn’t have to take your shit ever again. I am stronger than you ever wanted me to be, but that was your mistake. Mark my words, Vincent. That was the last time you ever hit me...this is the last time you will ever see me.” She let her voice drop lower, feeling the anger inside of her build for the first time in so long, and for the first time, she was grateful for her dreams because it allowed her to steel herself as she assured him, “If you ever touch me again or seek me out, I will chain you to that house and burn it to the ground while you scream.” “Are you threatening me?” For the first time in her life, she thought she saw a little bit of fear lurking in his dark gaze. “No. It’s a goddamn promise, you piece of shit,” she turned her back, and walked with confidence back to the rental car. She didn’t care about bruising or the cut on her cheek that was slowly bleeding. Perhaps going to the house was a mistake, but it had given her a different kind of closure that she hadn’t been expecting. It felt good. It felt like a victory. |