Ashley Magnus (wemustletgo) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-04-29 03:12:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, ashley magnus, helen magnus |
Who: Helen and Ashley
What: After a certain dream, Ashley has a lot of pointed questions for her mother.
When: Wednesday April 29th
Where: Helen’s home
Warnings: Some language, some references to cancer and abuse
Status: Complete upon posting!
There are things you need to know about your mother. Those words had hung heavy in Ashley’s mind since she’d woken up. The amount of lies that her mother had told her that were revealed in the course of one dream was shocking. In fact, Ashley was somewhat questioning if her entire life in her dreams was made up entirely of lies her mother told her. And those also encompassed her father. John Druitt, the man that had tried to feed her to a giant iguana, had once again kidnapped her, but then he revealed so many lies that Helen had told her.
Ashley had on her own deduced that John was her father in the dream. And upon waking, she suddenly made the connection to her father in her waking life. Which only brought up more questions she wanted, no needed, to ask her mother. Ashley was positively livid about the lies in the dreams and the fact her mother in the waking life knew exactly what those lies were and had said nothing about it. But Ashley was also emotional because suddenly the fact that she’d convinced herself her father was dead in this world was suddenly shattered. The lie she’d told herself so she could live her life was no longer in place and she needed to know if her father was alive, if he still cared about her.
Which was why, after spending a couple hours trying to calm down enough where she could manage a phone call without screaming at her mother, she called and asked if she could go over to Helen’s, that they needed to talk. Which it would probably be more of an argument, of Ashley pushing and pushing for the answers she wanted, yet at the same time feared, all the while part of her worldview was shattering. Part of her simply wanted to breakdown and cry, but she refused to do that, not until she got answers from her mother.
So without much delay after the phone call, Ashley drove to Helen’s. This time, knowing she was expected, she didn’t knock and simply walked in.
“Mom?” She called, for the moment the anger she felt was simmering under the surface. But Ashley was never good at completely hiding her emotions from her mother. Helen would be able to hear that subtle note of bubbling anger in the tone of her voice and see it in her eyes. But she would also see a flicker of the pain, the fact her world had vastly shifted suddenly and she was breaking beneath the surface because of it.
There were a lot of things about the dreams Helen had been dreading, but this one had somehow slipped past her consideration. They didn’t talk about Ashley’s father, for good reasons, Helen thought. She should have expected the dreams would raise questions.
Helen had been keeping close track of Ashley’s dreams, the ones she talked about at least. She would never ask directly, afraid she might give too much away with her constant worry. Still, it had been a surprise to get the phone call, and she hadn’t been certain what to make of it at first. Ashley had been upset, there had been no mistaking that. She knew her daughter. And as far as she was aware, she hadn’t recently done anything to earn her wrath, which meant it must be dream related.
It wasn’t until her daughter came through the front door, however, that it hit her what she must have dreamt about.
Lovely. Steeling herself against what she was certain would be an argument, Helen stood, just managing to cover a wince as her ribs protested the movement. Bloody Dreams.
“Ashley.” She was very careful to keep her tone neutral, treading lightly in the vain hope of heading off an angry outburst. “Why don’t I make us a pot of tea?”
While typically Ashley was better tuned into Helen and her body language, right now Ashley was solely focused on trying to not completely see red. She was going to try and approach the subject in a relatively calm manner. But that was far, far easier said than done. Not to mention there was the fact Ashley didn’t exactly know where to start in her need to talk.
Of course, Ashley knew it would inevitably end up being an argument at some point, but as it was, starting it as a calmer conversation would be needed. After all, Ashley wasn’t exactly patient, especially at this current moment.
“Alright,” she responded to the tea offer. It would at least give her time to think of what she wanted to say first. Because she really had so many choices of where to start. She crossed her arms and tried to take a deep breath to keep herself as calm as possible.
“So Baldy ‘Let-Me-Feed-You-To-A-Giant-Iguana’ McKidnapper is my dad.” And then out that one came. And was obviously in reference to the dreams and not the real life one. And it was, also, a statement, not a question.
It was really just as well. Helen would rather not have to explain how she acquired the damage to her ribs or the dark bruises she knew stretched across her abdomen and wrapped around her right side, and she couldn’t entirely hide it, no matter how stubborn she was. It was especially noticeable in the little things, the way she moved a little more slowly, taking more delicate steps. Or the occasional barely suppressed grimace.
She was halfway into the kitchen when Ashley’s words hit her, and she instantly stilled, though she didn’t turn to face her. Not yet.
“I know.”
Simple. Honest. Helen braced herself for what might be coming next, the questions her daughter might ask, questions she didn’t think she wanted to answer.
It would certainly work to Helen’s favor at the moment that Ashley was not paying attention to the little things. She already had too much going on in her own head to really notice much else. There wasn’t exactly much room for anything else to work its way in currently.
At Helen’s response, the honesty was both welcome and irritating. Irritating because Helen had already been dreaming of this exact same world, same life. But welcome because Ashley couldn’t handle anymore lies right now.
“Why did dream-you not tell me my father was alive? Or even what his name was?” And there was a slight bite of that simmering anger to the tone of her voice in those questions.
Helen wasn't much in the mood for lies, herself. There were, of course, certain things that she wouldn't or couldn't tell her daughter. She would make no apologies for that. But she was too tired and too sore to avoid the question or to lie outright.
“I thought it was for the best.” She turned to face her again, wrapping a protective arm around her side. “I was trying to protect you.”
She didn’t sound defensive, not quite. She didn’t sound apologetic either.
“You saw what he was, how far he would go. Can you honestly blame me?”
Given the evidence at hand, Ashley wasn’t going to argue that the man wasn’t dangerous. Because he clearly was. He’d beaten Ashley up and tried to feed her to a giant iguana. She wouldn’t even try to argue that what Helen had done regarding John was completely wrong, but she still had some issue.
“I get that, and I get you were protecting me. But don’t you think I deserved to know what my father’s name was? Why did I have to learn it from him and not from you?” And there was Ashley’s point, what she believed was the crux of the issue for her dream self. The fact that the revelations had been from a man that had tried to kill her and not from her own mother.
She felt betrayed, in a way, let down in so many ways that Helen hadn’t seen fit to tell her the truth. “Why did I have to hear the truth from him?” Perhaps there was a note of accusation in her voice, but Ashley wasn’t apologizing for that. “Didn’t you trust me to be able to handle the truth?”
Helen didn’t so much as flinch, despite how much the words stung, but she couldn’t hide the hurt that flashed in her eyes, or the guilt. Because Ashley wasn’t entirely wrong. She shouldn’t have had to hear the truth from John. It wasn’t his place to tell her.
“Of course I trusted you.” From her perspective, it had nothing to do with trust. She’d kept the truth from her hoping to spare her the hurt of knowing who her father was and what he had been. She hadn’t wanted Ashley to question herself, to wonder how much like him she would become. Not because she’d thought she couldn’t handle it, but because she shouldn’t have had to handle it at all.
“I never thought he would have a place in your life, Ashley.”
“Oh really, you trusted me. You trusted me so much that I had to learn the truth of your state of being from a psychopath? About why you are long-lived.” Ashley’s arms were still crossed over her chest. “An abnormality in your genes as opposed to ‘I was injected with pure vampire blood.’ What about that lie?”
Really, Ashley was questioning so many things about their dream lives, about what was truth and what was lie.
“And he doesn’t have a place in my life other than being a psychopathic kidnapper. But I still think I deserved to know who he was. He’s still my father.” And she wasn’t even yet touching on the real-life issues the dream had brought up about her father.
Helen nearly argued that on principle. She technically hadn’t been lying; the traits were already there in her genes, the Source Blood had simply unlocked them. But it would have been asking for a fight, and she thought Ashley probably had more than enough reason to be upset with her already.
“Why would you have needed to know? If it had become relevant, I would have told you.” That hadn’t been John’s place either, telling their daughter it was her mother’s experiment that caused him to change. And, ultimately, that same experiment had been responsible for his madness, the worst of it anyway.
At the next, though, she shook her head, voice firm, “Only by blood.”
“Uh because I’m your daughter and don’t those things pass on to children? Don’t think I have a right to know that I could have the same thing in me? It would help to know about it before it became relevant. Because going by the dreams? Relevant typically means someone has to get hurt by the thing first before anyone says anything. And I’d have liked to know before I went and hurt someone.” Little did Ashley know that, in fact, that was her future in the dreams. She’d be a guinea pig for the Cabal bringing out the Abnormal traits in her genetics and then use her against her mother.
“Last time I checked, ‘only by blood’ still constituted part of what a father was. I want nothing to do with the asshole, but I would’ve liked to have known his name before he suddenly appeared in my life.” Because then she at least would have known how to fight him. And potentially kill him, but that was another matter entirely.
Ashley clenched her jaw for some moments. “I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up because it’s not like it’ll change the dreams.”
That time she did flinch, already knowing where the dreams were headed. If only Ashley knew how close she was to the truth. If she were going to tell her, now would have been the time, but she simply couldn't do that.
"The Blood was gone, inaccessible. And do you really think I wouldn't have checked?"
It was, in fact, one of the first things Helen had done, especially already knowing Nigel had passed on his gift. Of course she'd worried Ashley might inherit her longevity, or worse, John's abilities.
"If I had told you his name, if I had told you what he'd done, then what? What good would it have been?”
God forbid, Ashley looked him up, connected the dots and figured out her father was one of the greatest serial killers in history. Will had done so easily enough, and he hadn’t had the benefit of knowing just how long she’d been alive.
“Why are you bringing it up?” It was clear by the way she said it that she already had her suspicions and was simply waiting for them to be confirmed.
“How would I know? You’re the queen of lies in the dreams, apparently.” The one simple statement said a lot. It said just how much she was suddenly questioning everything in the dreams, even questioning her waking life.
“Maybe then I’d actually know why I feel the way I feel sometimes! Maybe I could’ve then avoided doing some things in the dreams. I don’t know, maybe I could’ve simply been a better person or a better daughter.” There definitely had been times in the dreams where she’d wondered how the hell she came out of Helen. She had more anger, more brawn and less intelligence than Helen. And clearly those traits had not come from her mother.
And now she was questioning herself in her waking life. Dramatic irony for you, the very questions Helen had wanted to save Ashley from were questions she’d already silently been asking herself for years.
At the question, Ashley huffed and quickly changed gears. She refused to settle on the self-loathing that was suddenly welling up within her, and she grabbed hold of the anger again.
“Because I want to know if it carries over into this life. I was certain my father died when I was 10. Is he dead here?” Alright so the anger she’d grabbed hold of was rather hollow because the question she just asked was the epicenter of her crumbling world. And it also told Helen that Ashley had convinced herself that her father had died.
With a careful breath, Helen took a few steps back toward her daughter, her right arm still held close to her side, mindful of every movement and expression. As much as Ashley’s words hurt, she couldn’t be angry. She’d deserved that. She had lied to her, so many times.
“You know that isn’t true. You’re a wonderful daughter, Ashley.” And maybe a part of her wanted to deny how much the daughter she’d known in her dreams had reminded her of John. She knew that wasn’t who Ashley was, what she was, and she hadn’t wanted her to ever think she might be.
Helen had known when she asked that Ashley’s answer would have something to do with her father as she had known him here. She had expected there would be questions. She hadn’t expected that one.
“Ashley.” There was so much emotion behind that one word, guilt and pain. How Ashley must have been hurting. And she’d never really known.
What she wanted more than anything in that moment was to take her daughter into her arms and hold her, tell her everything would be all right. Instead, she answered her question, “The last I knew, your father was fine, still living in Seattle.”
For all of her bravado, Ashley was more fragile than she ever cared to admit when it came to things like this. Having seen how her mom in the dreams had lied to her about so many things had caused her to question things in this life. She was desperately trying to hold onto the anger she felt, it would be the only thing that could keep her from losing here in front of Helen.
Not that she’d never cried in front of her mother, but right now she didn’t want to start crying or breakdown. She’d do that later when she was alone. But it was becoming more and more difficult to hold herself together.
“Am I? Wouldn’t you prefer it if I wasn’t like him? Wouldn’t you prefer it if I’d become a scientist or something?” Ashley was referring to her dream self. She didn’t yet bring that into her waking life.
Ashley crossed her arms again and tried to maintain a stiff upper lip. She didn’t manage it well at all, she wasn’t British in the way her mother was. But at the answer Helen gave her, Ashley looked up towards the ceiling as she drew in a breath, shaky with emotion. It took a moment before she looked back to Helen, her blue eyes welling with tears that she was trying so hard to fight.
“So he just didn’t care about me anymore. Great. Perhaps I shouldn’t have lied to myself about that.” Her memories of her father told her that he had cared, but how was she supposed to explain never hearing from him again after the divorce, never seeing him? And that was how she’d chosen to explain it, that he’d died because it was easier than thinking he didn’t care about her any longer.
Helen, for her part, knew just how fragile her daughter could be, but sometimes it was so easy to forget. In many ways, Ashley was the stronger of the two of them, but now, all she saw was the frightened little girl who used to come to her in the middle of the night. To know how much she was hurting, and know this time she couldn’t make it better.
“You’re my daughter. I didn’t care that you weren’t interested in science or that you didn’t want to follow in my footsteps. How could you think that would change anything?”
She loved her daughter more than anything, in either reality. Ashley was the most important part of herself, a reason for living. She made her life better. Nothing could change that.
Her heart was breaking, knowing what she knew now, knowing her daughter had spent all these years believing (hoping?) her father was dead so that she could at least remember he loved her.
“No. He didn’t care about me anymore.” And perhaps that was a lie she had told herself, because it was easier than the truth. “Your father loved you, Ashley.” Then added more quietly, “You never should have had to doubt that.”
It had been a long time since Ashley had been the scared little girl on the outside, but in some ways she was still very much that scared little girl on the inside. There had been things she’d never grown out of or really gotten over, as was evidenced with the current bout of revelations.
“I don’t know, maybe we could’ve had more conversations about science or something.” Ashley said with a shrug of one shoulder. She well knew her mother loved her, both in the dreams and in this life. But right now, it was hard to see past the lies.
“How would you know if he still loved me? If he still loved me then he damn well would’ve tried to contact me, which he obviously didn’t. Ergo he didn’t love me either.” Ashley had long ago made peace with the fact her parents hadn’t loved each other anymore. She’d at least been old enough to understand what divorce meant. And given the fact she’d never heard from her father again once he left, she was left to make her own conclusions on the matter.
And this was the hard part. Helen could see how much her daughter was hurting, what this was doing to her. She also knew absolutely that John had loved Ashley. In the same way she knew the only way to convince her of that now would be to tell her truth, and she didn’t know if she would be able to forgive her once she did. But more lies weren’t going to help anyone.
“Because I know your father.” It took a little longer to force the rest of the words out, and when she did, it was barely a whisper, “And because I didn’t give him much choice.”
Which, yes, was an admission that she had been responsible for completely removing John from his daughter’s life.
Helen was correct, more lies wouldn’t help anyone in this situation. More lies would only make Ashley that much angrier. But the truth of the matter, well, that was something Ashley wasn’t prepared for. She wasn’t suspecting that Helen had kept things from her. Probably because Ashley was thinking John in the dreams was exactly like John in this life.
And then Helen uttered those words and the world suddenly seemed to stop. Ashley looked at Helen, wondering if she’d heard her right. For all the raging storm of emotions she had going on inside of her, it all came to an abrupt halt. Clearly the eye of the storm had just hit.
“What do you mean you didn’t give him much choice?”
If she were honest, that moment of calm terrified Helen more than anything else. Perhaps it was because she knew that this particular lie, Ashley might never forgive, even if it had been more an omission than a lie.
“It was my decision, Ashley.” She wouldn’t tell her why, though she’d had her reasons. He had been a good father when Ashley was young, and Helen couldn’t take that away from her. She’d rather let her hate her than taint those memories. “I asked for the divorce. I asked him to keep his distance. That was my choice.”
Briefly letting her eyes slide closed, she gathered her strength, now more determined than ever to keep Ashley from noticing how painful it was for her to move currently.
“There were letters, gifts the first few years. I never got rid of them.”
Ashley always did have an explosive temper, so when the calm tended to hit in the middle of the storm, it was frightening. Ashley rarely ever got that angry that she’d hit the calm stage before exploding. It had been something Helen had only experienced a couple times previously in this life. But it was here now.
She didn’t exactly care about who had asked for the divorce or the why. Not now, anyway. She was more focused on the other side of the conversation, of why she’d never heard from her father again. And hearing that John had sent letters and gifts and that Helen had kept them from her was all it took.
The eye of the storm passed and rage surged through Ashley once more. For the time being, her emotional upheaval over these revelations was pushed aside by the rage.
“My father sent things for me and you kept them from me?” Her voice wavered with the rage that was now pulsing through her. Throwing her hands up, Ashley turned and walked around in a circle. She had the urge to punch something really hard, but she refrained from it. She’d have a go at her punching bag when she got back to her apartment. She then turned back to her mother, anger written plainly on her face. “Why would you keep those from me? Did you hate him that much that you’d punish both him and me like that?”
Because clearly the fact that Ashley had created her own lie that her father had died because it was less painful to believe than he wasn’t caring was a punishment. Helen may have been trying to protect her, but it ended up being far worse given what Ashley had told herself.
Unfortunately, it was all rather tied in together. Helen had requested the divorce for the very same reasons she’d asked him to leave, to stay away from them both. And she’d kept those letters from Ashley because she hadn’t wanted to explain why her father never came to visit when he’d clearly still wanted to be a part of her life, and because she hadn’t wanted John to have a place in her life.
She’d thought it was the right thing to do at the time, to protect her daughter. She realized now it may not have been the best way to go about things.
“I wasn’t punishing anyone. I was trying to do what was best for us, Ashley.”
“You were punishing us while doing what you thought was best!” Ashley shot back. And sometimes doing what may have been the best thing led to very bad things. Such as the current situation.
“You didn’t want him to be any part of either of our lives despite the fact he obviously still wanted to be a part of my life. I wanted and needed both of you back then! I could’ve used those letters because at least I would’ve known he still loved me!” After all, pairing the whole surviving cancer emotions with the fact she lost her father at the pretty much the same time had left its scars. And it just drudged up some of the emotions tied into her cancer survival that she really didn’t want to get into. Cancer was a trauma that a person never truly recovered from, especially when a trauma that had happened at the same time was revisited.
As Ashley’s anger had gained momentum, Helen’s defensiveness had started to collapse. She had done this. She couldn’t deny, couldn’t make it right. And she wouldn’t apologize for it.
“I can’t undo what’s already been done.” It was soft, not apologetic, but completely lacking in anger or frustration.
She lingered a moment longer, watching her daughter across the room. Then, decision made, she turned and started down the hall, disappearing through a door. It took a little longer than it might have under different circumstances, but eventually, she returned with a box, trying not to wince as she deposited it on the sofa.
“Here. Take them.”
Ashley didn’t know what she wanted out of this argument. She doubted she’d get an apology, so she wasn’t expecting one. But airing her grievances was for the best, really. It was getting the anger out at the very least. And she was the type that needed to vent. If she didn’t, it only got worse.
When Helen left the room, Ashley almost took the opportunity to leave, but she remained, trying to breathe a bit before she went and got in her car. The last thing that needed to happen was that she caused an accident because she was too angry to properly pay attention to traffic.
Though when Helen came back with the box and set it on the sofa, Ashley just looked at it for a moment. So many emotions welled up within her. All at once she wanted to break down and cry, to scream, to punch something. Pressing her lips together and trying to hold her tears at bay, Ashley walked over to the sofa. She slowly leaned over to pick it up, if only because she was uncertain about doing it. Part of her was afraid to read the letters, afraid of completely unraveling fourteen years of the lie she’d told herself, afraid of completely falling apart. But part of her wanted to read them, needed to know her father had still loved her.
Holding the box, she looked down at it for some moments before she looked back up at Helen. Anger, pain, a sense of betrayal, it was all evident in her body language. But she suddenly didn’t have anything else to say. Not at this moment anyway. Not with finally having the box her mother had kept from her.
“Thank you.” She finally said, acknowledging the offer of truth there. It would take far longer for Ashley to actually calm down and come back around to being on speaking terms with Helen after this, but this, at least, was a truth that she’d been given. She then nodded a bit and turned, not having anything else to say, and left.
At least when she settled down, she could approach the topic calmer. But for now, the anger would do neither of them any good. Ashley had said all she’d needed to say, and she wasn’t going to beat her mother down any further. Even with the level of anger and betrayal she felt over everything, Ashley did still love her mother. Forgiveness, however, would be slow to come.