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Rosemary Walten threw her head back as well as she could and howled, a deep, broken, walking sound that echoed through the empty room, refracted her agony in a thousand little pieces, each one pushing back into her mind and assaulting it all over again.
She was acutely aware of everywhere she was, everywhere all at once but somehow still confined in the prison that had melded to her, a cage holding her locked tight in her suffering for god knows how long- the robots body, an unfeeling, cold cage of metal and rust and fabric- and her own body, her own disassembled body, her own disassembled, torn-apart BUT STILL ALIVE body.
Rosemary screamed again, and it was, again, less of a scream and more of a howl, an animalistic noise of suffering that went on until it choked her, skeleton hands and rosebush thorns wrapping around her throat. Screaming, sobbing pleas of help, please, someone, JACK- that never got an answer because maybe they were all in her head or maybe she was alone. Rose didn't know which was worse.
All she knew for sure was that ache, the nauseating feeling of her shredded body parts slowly oozing onto cold metal, the ceaseless painful throbbing through every inch of her, the stabbing pain of failure, worst of all. Rosemary hadn't found Jack, had no idea where he was, and now she was trapped and hurt and she'd left SOPHIE behind, her darling, darling Sophie had no one left. Rose was a failure, as a wife and a mother.
Maybe she deserved this, then. Maybe this was the Lord's punishment to her, for not finding Jack and oh, God, Edd and Molly, she still had no definitive answer for what had happened to them she was such a fucking failure. Red into blue back into red, red, red, RED, she deserved this but she didn't deserve this but she should have been there for Edd and Molly and Jack but now she can't be there for Sophie she's a failure she's a failure she's a failure she's a
"Rose?"
The sound of her name had a sobering effect on Rosemary and she snapped out of her self-deprecation, looking around and then staring. This couldn't be happening, that was
"Jack?"
Her words came out strange, not her own voice but a surprisingly strong one, given the state her body was in. If Rosemary could blink, she would have, but instead this vision swam before her eyes, and golly, what a vision. It was JACK, her Jack, her precious, beloved husband. What a kind hallucination to have, after all the suffering.
"Rose....oh my God...."
Jack was crying. That was a rare sight, he wasn't a very emotional man but Rose had never minded. He showed his feelings in other ways. Now he was crying, he had cried that night, too, after Felix hadn't answered the phone or come back with Edd and Molly and left the Waltens in fear and panic that had never been resolved. They had both cried that night, hard enough to wake Sophie up.
Rosemary was drawn out of her memories by a feeling. Gentle pressure on cold metal covered by scraggly "fur". Jack's hand on her- no, the robot's arm. You couldn't touch a hallucination. Jack leaned closer to Rose, tears trailing down his cheeks. She was taller than him now, it seemed. "Jack? Is that really you?" That voice again, so emotionless and cold and not HER. But her husband didn't seem bothered by it, raising a hand to cup the robot's face. "It's me, Rose, it's me. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." Rusting metal joints creaked and cold arms moved to slowly encircle Jack's frame, Rose bending down to rest her head atop her husband's.
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The lights were mostly off in the facility, a faint but warm glow spilling out from under a door and illuminating the two figures from below. "It's not safe for you here, Jack. The rabbit......it could get you-" "He won't. Don't worry about me, Rosie." Even with the circumstances, Jack still spoke to his wife fondly, nothing but love in his tone.
Rose thought about what Jack's words could mean. It didn't take long for the realization to hit her, like a full-force punch to the gut. "Jack...... you're?" ".....Yes. Yes, I am." If Rose could cry, she would have, certainly, from grief and despair and anguish but also some tiny measure of sick, selfish, twisted relief that nauseated her and filled her with an instant regret that also hurt, less up-front and forceful but more painful. Pinching.
"This shouldn't have happened. You don't deserve this, Rosie." Jack's words tremble with fury and sorrow. Rose knew what he meant, knew they should have had more time, should have grown old tigether instead of losing each other in horrible ways. Jack sighed, a heavy, heartbroken sound. "But it's ok. I'm gonna help the best I can." He stroked the robot's face again, and that left Rose a total mess, desperately wishing she could express her feelings but not having a way to. Stuck in some robot's body, trapped endlessly in a cold, cold prison.
"Youve figured out how to move by now, right?" Jack asked. Rose lifted an arm in demonstration- a shaky, slow gesture, thanks to the animatronic's rusty joints and limited mobility- and Jack nodded in approval, smiling despite himself. "I knew you would. You were always so smart, Rosie." "Thank you." It wasn't enough, nothing she said could ever be enough and it frustrated her. "I love you, Jack." ".....I love you too, Rose." Jack whispers, tears rolling down his face.
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Rose quickly lost count of the time that went by- had it been days since her imprisonment? Weeks? Months? Years?- but that wasn't something to dwell on for too long. After all, with Jack's help, she was learning how to adapt to her new body...namely, how to move with it. Jack had helped to design the robots (he hadn't built them, no, that had been Susan, who Rose had always thought was such a kind girl. She missed their occasional chats.) and he had a good knowledge of how they worked. He was helping Rose to walk again, in this strange new body.
It was one of those days, a walking day. They had made it farther than usual, to a new place. There was never much light in the facility, so their surroundings were dim, but Rose saw what was ahead perfectly clearly. A mirror. A mirror, something she hadn't seen in so long. Rose approached it, ignoring the soft noise Jack made. Lurching over, she looked in....and her heart completely dropped.
Staring back at her was a tall, deformed white animal....a poodle- or, no, it was a sheep- with small, deranged eyes and a dislocated jaw. The robot was covered in ratty, dirty fur that was missing in several places and she was, of course, absolutely drenched in blood. A grotesque, spine-chilling creature. A monster. This was who she was now, a broken-down, bloody sheep robot. A damn nightmare come to life.
"Rose...." Jack's voice was low and melancholy. He slowly guided Rosemary to face him, staring into her eyes. "Look at me, Rose. I know you think you look.....bad, probably. Frightening. But you're not. You're still my wife, my beautiful Rose. You are beautiful, Rosemary." He whispered in a serious tone. "Never forget that. Never forget who you are and what you mean to me. You're the love of my life, and you'll always be beautiful to me. You'll always be my Rosemary."
Jack produced something from behind his back, then, a gentle smile on his face. He took it and placed it atop Rosemary's head, nestled in the sheep's fur. "There you go." Jack turned Rose back to the mirror, and she stared. Lying there was a solitary rose, a beautiful one, with bright red petals the color of lipstick and blood. The petals looked a little too glossy to be real but Rose didn't care. She definitely would've been tearing up if she could.
Instead, cold, rusted arms creaked out and pulled Jack close, a hard snout encased in thin fabric resting atop his head. Jack held his wife tightly, closing his eyes. Rose would too, if she could, but instead she focused on the strong hold her husband had on her and pretended they were okay, that she was only taller because he'd lifted her up the way he used to. They can pretend, can't they? At least for a while?
"I love you, Jack." So much put into those four little words. So much they'll never know.
"I love you too, Rose." All they had was each other. Their love.
A single remnant of their happy past, of lives they could never lead again. Lives left behind and buried, lives ended before they could ever really know them.
Somewhere, miles away, a young woman was crying in her foster home and she didn't know why.