Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

In her college days, Annette Hebert had been something of a wild card. She had taken pride in it, at the time, running with people that her mother would never have approved of, in the danger of knowing dangerous people and even calling them friends of a sort. There was a thrill in danger, in going to rallies and protesting, even though there were close calls a few times as she ran with the metaphorical bulls. 

When she grew older, she ended up distancing herself from a lot of those people, but they were great to know at the time. 

It was a time to experiment and learn all about the world with the safe semi-independence of a dorm shared with other like-minded students. No need for pushy parents and constantly looking over her shoulder to see if they were watching her, she could be her own woman and try things she had not before, filling her head with ideas that had been out of reach or unavailable before.

"Ah! Elizabeth, can you read over my essay?" she called to one of her dormmates one day, who was sitting in a chair reading a medical journal with a leg resting over the chair leg, the very image of relaxation and contentment. Elizabeth was her name, a striking woman whose hair was a glossy curtain of black that caught the light and always commanded Annette’s attention. Especially when she slipped into jeans, that woman had an ass that filled out nicely---

"What's it on?" her friend asked, glancing up at her as she reached up to take the still warm paper from Annette's hand. 

Their fingers brushed against one another a moment, sending a spark down her spine.

"Early Gothic romance and the female perspective within it."

"... What was that shit you were quoting at me about a woman having a man’s brain for the last one?" her friend sighed even as she set down her journal to look over the wall of text that she had been handed.

"Don't," Annette replied, rolling her eyes and taking the opportunity to take a seat beside her friend and lean over, most certainly not to sit closer to her. "Bram Stoker had a lot of funny ideas, the quote was 'She has man's brain, a brain that a man should have were he much gifted, and a woman's heart,' bleurgh," she made a sound of faint revulsion.

Elizabeth joined her in doing so.

"How quickly do you want me to do this, by the way? I've got a test tomorrow and I want to get in a few more hours."

"Deadlines Friday, but I want to get it in earlier so that I can make my appointment on time," she replied.

"Of course, did they manage to get your type by the way? You know that I'd be happy to donate again, offers always there."

The smile on Elizabeth's lips was electrifying, the promise she made had Annette's heart doing flips. So considerate, so kind...

They had grown closer, steadily but surely, the ravenette became the first person ever to know a lot of her deepest, darkest secrets, hopes and dreams. Elizabeth had known her in a way that nobody else ever had, intimately, even. It helped that the woman’s blood flowed in her veins, at least her innocent maiden's heart chose to believe so, it added a certain romantic sentiment to it all.

Perhaps they were too young, though.

Just two girls fooling around, Elizabeth was not ready for that level of commitment that she wanted, she wanted to keep things secret whilst Annette was keen for it to be known, to be proud of their relationship status. It all came to an end one night that left her crying and drinking in a bar at the ass end of the college campus, drowning her woes in a glass of Captain Morgans and loudly denouncing the evils of the world to a bartender who had heard it all before.

So, she moved on. 

Elizabeth was just one woman, there were plenty of fish in the sea who were less afraid of commitment. 

In the end, it was a perfectly normal man who ensnared Annette's wild heart and who she ended up marrying. Danny Hebert may not have had Elizabeth's acerbic wit or knowing, seductive glances but he was a stable rock who was there for her, who gave her his all. Her family may have disagreed with her choice in a man but she knew that he was the one.

Danny was not perfect; he had a lot of little flaws but when they met at the altar all thoughts of the woman she had once loved were gone from her mind. They had said their vows, the bells had rung and they began their married life together.

Little Taylor came not long after, her Little Owl, so named because of her wide little eyes that stared ever so curiously at her. Taylor wanted to see everything, her tiny head swivelling about and her daughter's first plushie was a small stuffed owl as a result. She promptly spoiled her rotten, and for a while thoughts of Elizabeth faded away.

Still...

Standing beside a window in the moonlight with little Taylor drooling fitfully onto her shoulder, Annette looked beyond the house and out onto the tiny garden beyond. A small construction project was underway, Danny was channelling his new parents' nerves by making a swing chair for when Taylor was old enough to enjoy it, hanging down from the somewhat twisted bough of a tree that gave only sour apples.

"Chante rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi je l'ai à pleurer

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai---"

Her French was a little rusty, but her own mother always used to sing the old lullaby to her, and now it was little Taylor's turn. Annette was not a very good singer, but it was more the effort that counted, accompaniment to the little bounces and swaying motions she made. 

It was only late at night that she would wonder what became of her first love, when she would wonder whether she would still have little Taylor in some capacity if all had gone better, if she had not been so keen to advance their relationship.

But by now she had moved on.

For as long as she had been alive, Taylor had been going to the doctors periodically with her mother. 

When she was young, she thought that it was perfectly normal, that all children accompanied their mothers to the doctors and waited patiently for the doctor to hook up the big red back to her mother’s arm, which was so pockmarked in the same place, and then waited more whilst the blood flowed into them. It was only normal, so much so that when Emma said it was odd, she almost struggled to believe it.

Eventually, she realised that it was not necessarily a normal thing, that her mother had a rather pronounced form of a condition called anaemia.

Her mother, long suffering from the condition, simply smiled and gave her a pat on the head when she asked whether she had it as well.

"It's okay dear, we had you tested when you were young." And that was that.

But still, visits to the doctors to put blood into her mother's veins was a common occurrence. She would sit on the hard plastic chair and struggle not to wriggle and squirm for how uncomfortable it was. Sometimes she would take one of her books to read whilst her mother would make idle talk with whichever doctor it was who was overseeing the 'transfusion'. It was a big word, but Taylor learned it quickly so that she could impress others with it.

But then one day, whilst accompanying her mother when she was a bit older, there had been something of an altercation.

"Mrs. Hebert to room number three please," came the call over the tannoy system. Taylor was a bit old to be coming with her mother to these appointments now, but they were going to a museum afterwards, and they had had to get the bus because her mother could not drive in her current state. 

They had walked together. Taylor would rather be in the room with her mother than listen to the trio of infants in the waiting area that was determined to bring the roof down with their cries.

Upon entering however, her mother had stopped in place, staring at the doctor. 

"Hello Mrs. Hebert," it was a very pretty lady with straight black hair, she looked about as old as her mother, to Taylor's eye, and smiled at them both.

"... Elizabeth." Her mother’s tone was so frosty that Taylor was put back by it, physically pausing in the doorway. Her mother looked as if she had half a mind to leave then and there, despite the wooziness that she had been enduring recently and her pale complexion. 

"Come now, its Dr. Báthor now, no need to be so cold, I am a medical professional," the doctor had said with such a pleasant smile and tone of voice as she indicated for them to take a seat, and focused her attention on Taylor after that. 

"Congratulations, by the way, you have a beautiful daughter, what's your name sweetheart?" 

Taylor bristled slightly as the woman used such a childish term to refer to her, and also as part of some instinctual reaction. If her mother did not like the doctor, then there was probably a good reason for it, and she did not want to make her mother angry by being overly friendly with the woman. 

"Taylor."

"Lovely to meet you Taylor," a perfunctory greeting, perhaps the doctor sensed her mood. But still, in this strange time that occurred at the beginning of any appointment the doctor was busy scanning information on the computer screen, those clay brown-red eyes glancing occasionally towards the pair of them but her mother in particular. 

"And have you had any blackouts recently, Mrs. Hebert?"

"Not for a few weeks."

"Wonderful."

Tap tap tap tap tap---

"... I've thought about you a lot over the years---"

"I do not think that it is very professional to discuss our past together in this sort of setting, especially in front of my daughter." 

The statement was delivered with such finality that even Taylor felt the force of it. The doctor paused for a moment and bowed her head, as if checking some paper note on the table, but Taylor saw the look of angered hurt on the woman’s face. It was swiftly replaced as she nodded, at once she was all professional.

Taylor glanced at her mother as curiosity welled within her, yet the look she received said enough. This was a grown-up conversation, if she was going to ask then she would have to wait. She was old enough now; she wasn't just some kid! Stewing, Taylor sat back in the chair and watched as the appointment continued.

Once all the information was checked over, the doctor rose to administer the blood.

"It's the right type, right?"

"AB plus, don't worry Ann---Mrs. Hebert, I remember. It is my own type, after all, and I made sure to check your records just in case," the doctor said, not even looking their way as she lifted out a particular blood bag from the selection, not going for the one at the very front or the very back, but selecting one in particular as if with great purpose.

Well, probably just one that was the right blood type, even if the bow was clearly marked to indicate that all the bags were the same.

From there, all went as was normal, even if the air remained so tense that Taylor was rather sure she could feel the physical presence force of it weighing upon her shoulders. She was glad to be out once all was said and done, her mother hurrying them though the waiting room without a word, and it was not until they reached the museum that she seemed to return to some semblance of her normal self.

Even then, her mother was quiet for the next few days.

"Mom, I don't think you should be driving," Taylor said slowly as her mother got behind the wheel a week later.

Perhaps she needed another transfusion, because recently her mother had really not been well at all. She was pale, nauseous, at times even dizzy a lot of the time, having to take time off work. All signs that she needed to visit the doctors, although she had not seemed much better after the last one, perhaps she was really in need? Taylor could not help but worry, she loved her mother, after all.

"It's nothing Taylor I just have a cold," her mother replied, even if she certainly did not sound as if she had a cold of any sort. Taylor nodded slowly as her mother turned the key in the ignition, the car's engine burst into life, rumbling away like the purring of an overly large and mechanical cat. 

Her dad could not take her to school today, and the bus route had never came close to the house at all. If she left sufficiently early then she might have been able to reach it on time, but both her parents were leery about letting her wander the streets of Brockton Bay early in the morning. 

She was a grown up now! She could handle herself!

But still they insisted.

And so, with a coil of discomfort in her gut, she submitted to her mother’s wisdom and they pulled out of the drive. 

She couldn't help but notice the way her mothers’ hands clenched the wheel as if to steel herself, how she paused a little longer at junctions, a few times she almost spoke up to tell her no, she was not well, her mother needed another transfusion and soon.

They could stop and Taylor would walk! Or dad could come and pick mom up if needed, hell, uncle Alan could pick Taylor up! He would not mind too much would he?

But she didn't speak up. 

In retrospect, it would have been so easy to do so.

Taylor felt more then saw the crash happen, her mother was struggling to look to the side, Taylor had been looking in the wrong direction to try and help her in that moment, and then suddenly her head was snapped to the side by the force of the impact. The other car had hit them as they emerged onto a crossroad, her mother unable to react in time, just a moment's mistake, a moment in which her mother had been unable to focus properly.

And now Taylor was laying limp in her chair, ears ringing, brain unable to keep up with what was happening. 

The car's horn was blaring at full volume, she couldn't see properly.

Through blurred eyes, Taylor could just about see somebody trying to help her mother out of the car, a head of dark hair undoing the seatbelt and releasing her from the seat, her mother was limp. Just unconscious or shocked, right? But she would be okay, she would be okay she had to be---

She was not.

Taylor stared numbly at the ground.

The uneven dirt was raised in a little mound, it stood out from the green grass that was either side of it. 

Her father was silent too, his eyes were downcast and focused on the headstone, as if unable to compute the truth that had been staring them in the eyes for the last few days. 

Her mother was gone, dead. It was impossible to imagine to her that everything could change just like that. A morning of a perfectly normal day, the same route she always drove in the same car and then just like a phone suddenly ringing and breaking silence, it changed utterly. 

Taylor never knew who it was who pulled her mother from the car crash, by the time she managed to come to her senses her mother was on the ground on her side, and died on the way to the hospital... The exact cause of death was blood loss and brute force trauma, two especially deep puncture wounds to the neck were the main cause, her head was bleeding as well. They said that it was quick. 

Was that a consolation? Her mother did not suffer. But she was still gone. No months of suffering from an incurable illness, at least.

She should have said something. 

Anything. 

She could have kicked up a fuss, could have refused to go, made up an excuse or gotten out of the car and gone back into the house. 

Her mother would have followed her in, and Taylor would have called dad or auntie Zoe and everything would have been okay.

Instead, those people who could have helped stood with them. Emma had come, so had Anne. The former was holding her hand at that moment, doing that thing where she would rub circles against its back, as if trying to hypnotise Taylor into thinking about something else, anything else.

"She's somewhere better now."

Was she?

Was she?!

Better than here, where Taylor needed her? How... she had never even conceived of life without her mother. Who would take her aside and give her the advice she needed when things went wrong, who would tell her charming stories of her grandmother and grandfather, who she rarely if ever got to see?

She nodded automatically to the words, numb.

She laid her own white roses on the grave, and did so every month from then on.

Curled up in her room, knees to her chest and Taylor felt hollow.

She had never grieved before, never been given the metaphorical padding to the experience that was having distant relatives die first. There was no inoculation for loss, no magical injection to move past such a thing, but she was so unprepared for it. Then there was the guilt. 

She could not escape the feeling that it was her fault.

All her fault.

Her father had had trouble looking at her, the clothing was piling up with neither of them in the mood to wash it.

The kitchen window was open, allowing a cool breeze to filter in through the window, no wonder the house was so cold, her father must have left it open, maybe a wasp got in and he let it out. 

The clothing was washed. Her father may not look any better, he still looked so very drawn and dead inside, but he must have roused himself to some semblance of life, if only to do the essentials of the house. That was... good. Taylor reached forward to pick up one of her jumpers, a faded grey thing with a picture of a winking owl on the front. 

It smelled like detergent, like conditioned.

It smelled like her mother.

The hoodie would need to be washed again, it was covered in tears and snot now...

Taylor had once heard something about it taking a long time to really get over grief.

Something about bones mending but scars never fading, always there to remind you of what you had been through? She could not remember it; it probably was a lot nicer and more pretty written than that. Perhaps it was a quote that her mother had once used for an English class, which was why it came to mind. 

But either way. 

She certainly did not see wounds healing. 

Her father was still a mess. Auntie Zoe had made a habit of coming around to help out, gently chiding and coaxing them both to pick up the slack. Sometimes Taylor would find a burst of motivation. She would clean down the house, sweep up the dust and cobwebs, get on top of the washing, and go to bed feeling content that she was moving past things, that she was moving on from mom.

Then the next morning her eyes would open and meet the blank ceiling, her gut sinking when she realised 'I am still here.'

Grief was a long punch right in the gut that twisted and wanted to crush you against a brick wall. 

She felt a lot more mature now, but only because she knew death.

Everything reminded her of her mother. She had had to put her beloved owl plushie away in a box, unable to bear looking at it, when she was tiny her mother used to bounce it from the bottom of the bed up, up her legs and tummy all the way into her neck, where she would then use it to tickle her. All these little things that she had grown out of, she would never get to enjoy again...

She hated it. 

She wished she was a child again.

A child forever, always able to delight in her mother’s presence and comfort, in her fathers happy, can-do family attitude rather than the husk he was now. She did not feel like a twelve-year-old any more, she felt like a husk.

But like a snail turning the wheel of the world by sliding along its rim, life moved on. 

She had school, she had Emma.

Apologising to a dark-haired woman she had almost bumped into, not sparing her a second glance, Taylor tried to catch up with her friend who was racing on ahead to look into a store window. A few moments later she glanced back, wondering who she was, for some reason Taylor imagined that she must be a very pretty woman indeed, but she was gone into the crowd.

"C'mon Tay, the new ice-cream place is just up there!"

"Coming Emma," she still did not feel any energy with which to smile, but she did her best for her friend.

Time passed.

Brockton Bay continued its slow decline, like a zombie or some manner of wounded buffalo that had not realised it was already dead it continued to move along. The gangs continued to fight; people were going missing. It happened every few years really, spats of people disappearing, except that now it was people who the authorities were taking notice of. Pretty college girls, handsome boys, many of them were not the sort of people who just disappeared.

Or they were not the sort of people that people could ignore disappearing.

There were public safety lectures at schools, about not going home with strangers or being careful whilst out and about. 

A few were eventually found, cuts to the neck, a few even looked like their throats had been ripped out. Probably gang stuff, maybe Hookwolf wanted to send a message by putting a transformed hand through them? That would probably create that sort of wound.

Taylor did not pay it much attention, really. 

She often felt like she was being watched, but she knew the truth, it was her own guilt. She did her best to ignore the way the hairs on the back of her neck would occasionally prickle, that sure sensation that something was watching her. It always made her walk a little faster. 

Somebody had left a pie on the doorstep, probably auntie Zoe. 

Taylor took it in without a word.

Apple, that was sweet, she and dad would eat it as they dined in silence later. 

Laying in bed, unable to sleep but in that strange, half-delirious state between conscious and unconsciousness, at a boundary between two worlds. She often struggled to sleep now, finding herself in such a state often. Night or day, both held about as much appeal to her. 

"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai..."

She could practically hear her mother’s lullaby right now, even though she was dead, even though she was a big girl now who hadn't needed lullabies in years. She pressed the side of her face against the pillow, staring out her open window at the pale moon beyond, the only light in the sky of Brockton Bay.

"J'ai perdu mon amie,
Sans l'avoir mérité..."

The cold caress of the night air upon her face and neck made the tears feel cold on her face.

She eventually succumbed to sleep, fitful dreams of the crash, of her mother’s pale, lifeless face staring at her, blood trailing from her mouth and neck. And then she would wake in small moments, and feel the cold wind upon her neck that felt like fingers, and sounded like gentle lullabies