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She thought the world ending would be more chaotic.
Fires everywhere, hell raining from the clouds as if the very Earth had come to take her revenge at last. Perhaps some screams and blood.
She hadn't anticipated for it to be so quiet.
The whole universe seemed to be holding its breath. How was the remaining population on Earth, the ones that survived the fires and asteroids and floods, going to die? Nothing flew in the trees. Nothing rustled in the leaves. Autumn was a solemn spirit for the first time in her nineteen years.
Wednesday wondered if the birds were cowering with their loved ones.
Pathetic.
She gazed up at the pristine blue sky, not a single cloud in sight. They had been told that the final asteroid (almost the size of the moon, the panicked researchers had reported) would hit them in around an hour. No one could outrun it. It would kill them all.
If she squinted, she probably would've seen it.
It was the end of the world, and Wednesday Addams chose to spend it alone in what would have been a pond years ago. Now it was a murky wasteland. She didn't mind.
Years ago, she had gone fishing with Pugsley here. He had always been softer than her. But weaker? Before he had gone, she would have agreed. Now that he would never grow, it was debatable.
Because he was dead, along with her mother, father, Uncle Fester, and Thing. And Xavier, and Eugene.
Everyone was gone.
The world deserved to be quiet, she thought. It was fitting for stealing the last bits of hopeless light in it.
The silence was why she heard the boots as early as she did. And then the rhythmic breathing that she had memorized over their years dorming together.
"I sure as hell am not letting you spend the end of the world alone."
"Leave."
"Wednesday Addams." She felt the wood bounce the slightest as Enid sat next to her. "I refuse."
If she could've felt more, Wednesday would've gaped at her nerve.
"Bianca-"
"Told me to stay with you. She's staying with the rest. I just..." Enid inhaled shakily, "said goodbye to them all. I'm here till the end."
"You should go back to them. I will sit here and contemplate my life until we are wiped out by that asteroid, and you wouldn't want to do that."
She expected Enid to leave at that, leave Wednesday as alone as Goody had promised that she would always be. She had forgotten how Enid Sinclair was the only person that even she couldn't predict.
"I don't mind that."
She would've scoffed at that. Enid had to have minded that. She was a creature of blinding sunlight and ear-melting music. Of white light shone through a prism.
Enid Sinclair was not the type of person to spend the end of the world in silence.
Yet, for some reason, Enid stayed.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, gazing at the murky water. It was brown now, the remnants of blood and ash and soil all making its mark. There had been a time before all of this when the water had been green and the fish still alive.
That was a time of the past.
Soot coated their eyes for a reason. Their mangled appearance was proof that nothing had been the same.
Eugene lost while saving his bees.
Xavier lost trying to save Nevermore.
Her parents lost holding one another as they screamed at Pugsley and Wednesday to run.
Thing... crushed.
And Pugsley gone as he pulled the alarm to alert everyone of the fire.
There had been a simpler time before this. Now death and grief brought down them all.
"I thought I would get married before I died. Then gone and done something real with my life," Enid's voice was barely a whisper, but it pulled Wednesday out of her thoughts.
"I don't think not feeding into capitalism is a bad thing."
Enid snorted. "Yeah but... I would fantasize about the rest of my life all the time when I was little. I had it all planned out - I would go to LA and everything. Maybe meet someone... special. And I would have kids and grandkids while being one of the most successful women on this Earth. I had names in my head for contacts that I was sure I would call in twenty years."
"And then the end of the world."
"And then the end of the world," Enid echoed.
A beat passed as they let the words travel to the wind.
"Do you ever think what would've happened if all of," she gestured into the oblivion, "hadn't happened."
The silence stretched between them as Wednesday gazed at the sky. The speck of bright light was visible now. Under an hour left.
"Sometimes," she exhaled. When she didn't elaborate, Enid nodded.
"Yeah. Me too. I like to think that I would go and run. I would wolf out and find my pack, fit in and do so much more. Lawyer maybe?"
"You want to be a lawyer?" Wednesday tore her eyes away from the sky to look at the blonde. She was averting her gaze, instead staring straight in front of her. A sort of longing was in her eyes that Wednesday recognized from all of these years. It had been in Pugsley's, and in so many Nevermore students. Nostalgia for the future, they liked to call it. It was the quiet way that everyone mourned their future before it was stolen from them.
"I did," she laughed humorlessly. "I know, I know, that doesn't sound like 'happy, bubbly Enid'. And the thing is, I wanted to do it to say yes, mom and dad, I can be myself and be something that you'd be proud of. Wearing a bright pink suit was at the top of my list, can you believe it? I was stupid."
For some reason, Wednesday felt the need to interject. Because Enid Sinclair, calling herself stupid?
Enid didn't realize how... incredible that she was. That was the only way to describe someone who was simply a force of nature.
"You are not stupid. You want to tear down the system and show everyone how idiotic they were. You... It's simply not true."
Enid turned to Wednesday, eyes brimming with emotion. Then, before Wednesday knew what was happening, she reached forwards and wrapped her in a tight hug. Instinctually, Wednesday almost turned away. She could've turned away - as strong as Enid could be, she knew how to disarm the werewolf.
And yet.
And yet.
Her eyes shut, almost out of their own accord, as she hugged her back.
Enid's hair had grown since they were sixteen. It was long and hung wildly in a way that was powerful and elegant at the same time. It suited her. The hair tickled Wednesday's nose as she buried herself in it without knowing why. Perhaps because she needed an anchor - the end of the world was not a time for formality.
That thought, the small fleeting thing that told her that it was okay to breathe and to acknowledge what she was feeling, alarmingly made her eyes prickle.
Wednesday Addams had only cried twice in her entire life. But on a pier, caught in between Enid's arms that told her that even if emotion was pathetic it was okay to let the beast rear its head, as the asteroid hurtled towards them, she let a tear slip.
Life was too short for shoving in her hormonal fluctuations.
Enid pulled away, turning to the sky. It was slowly brightening, the speck of light was growing larger and larger.
"Wednesday, before this happens, I have to do something. I just- It's just- I've wanted to do it for so long and now that it's almost all over and I don't have time to go on a monologue that you deserve about how amazing and beautiful and deadly you are which you totally deserve and I just-"
Her desperate blue eyes roamed Wednesday's, and maybe somewhere in the depths of herself Wednesday knew what was going to happen. It was why she leaned forwards before Enid could, hands reaching for her cheeks as their lips met.
And Enid kissed her back like she was drowning and her last breath of air lay in Wednesday's lips.
They pulled apart for a moment. Wednesday assessed Enid, who's eyes had gotten teary. And she knew that despite emotions being something that were utterly pathetic, despite the promise that she had made to never fall in love-
She had fallen the moment that Enid Sinclair had met her eyes in her abhorrently bright bedroom.
Perhaps she had always known that. She never doubted that she hadn't. Enid Sinclair was a force of nature, after all. Forces of nature defied all odds. Indestructible.
Enid glanced at the sky, and turned away from it for good. She met Wednesday's eyes, and began to speak.
"I told you that I loved you on a normal day and took you out on a normal date, in a normal cafe where I laughed at you when you ordered pitch-black coffee and sneered at my frappuccino."
And somehow, Wednesday continued.
"You always ordered it with too much sugar. It was as if you were begging for diabetes. And then I took you to a graveyard to show you an actual date."
Enid sob-laughed. "It was scary. But it was okay, and even if I didn't tell you until a long time later, it was one of the best days of my life."
"I courted you all through the hell that was high school."
"And college."
"And beyond."
"And then..." Enid looked as if she was going to hold something back, but at the last second, decided to say it. "Years later, I proposed. In the same cafe, with the same drinks."
Wednesday wasn't quite sure what she was doing. But for the first time, she decided that she would stop thinking. Life was too short for shoving in her hormonal fluctuations.
Life was too short for stopping the artpiece that was Enid Sinclair.
"I accepted, and we got married in a quiet place. Nothing too," she wrinkled her nose, "frilly."
"You wore something gothic and intimidating and so utterly you. And do you want to know something, Wednesday? I forgot how to breathe."
"My parents, Eugene, Thing, Uncle Fester..."
"They were all there. And then afterwards..."
"I would carry you to our house. I know how to carry a person."
"And we got a cat, years after. I named him Sir Fluffylicious despite your scowl. Our dreams- they came true. And we'd grow old together."
"You would look stunning when you're older."
Enid smiled through the tears that had been falling from her eyes, then. "You would look exquisite."
The world was bracing itself. It was their last minute. They both never once looked at the sky.
Wednesday let herself feel the wood under her. She let herself feel Enid Sinclair's soft hands.
She let herself feel.
This time, when Enid leaned forwards and captured her lips in her own, it was not a desperate kiss. As they dug their hands in the other's hair and kissed and kissed and kissed as the asteroid came to fall to the Earth, Wednesday knew that this was not a goodbye.
Enid's lips on hers, hands buried in her braids, body pressed against hers, was the last thing that Wednesday Addams felt.
And she knew that younger her may have scoffed.
But Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair died, nineteen and at peace.
And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.