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i.
to say lex foster has been dealt a shitty deck of cards would be an understatement, at the very least.
(day in and out, it's love and inertia that keeps her going. she thinks of all the ways things could be different, but that doesn't change a thing, in the end.)
she hates her mother, doesn’t know her father, loves her sister, and, more than anything, wants to get out of this shitty fucking town.
(and if there's moments she doesn’t let herself remember, where she finds things in her hands that aren't supposed to be there? she won't tell.)
ii.
she meets ethan a year after hannah’s born. they don't speak for another three.
(hatchetfield’s one of those towns where everyone is barely one degree from another. lex finds it claustrophobic most of the time, but it comes with its perks– namely ethan green.)
neither of them are exactly popular; ethan transferred from nantucket elementary after one too many fights, and lex simply didn't have the time for friends, even back then. all it takes is one group project, and the rest is history.
(years later, she'll be staring down a bomb, and he won't be by her side. that's history.)
iii.
lex doesn’t like to think about her mother.
it's easier when she doesn’t. most of the time that's easy enough, considering how little she's around. as long as she's leaving lex and hannah be, that's enough.
she wonders, sometimes, what it would be like to be a normal fucking kid for once, what she could be like without the weight of the world on her shoulders. god, she loves hannah more than anything else in the whole world but sometimes– well, there's no use in dwelling, is there.
(in another world, she gets to be. it's close enough.)
iv.
california's an idealization at the end of the day, and probably somewhere at her core, she knows that. whether she's ready to admit it or not, well, that's a different story.
she loves ethan with all her heart, she really does. he's kind, and protective, and unbreakingly earnest, and most importantly, loves hannah nearly as much as she does. still, they're kids– all of them –and there's only so much track to run for two high school dropouts and a semi-verbal tween.
(things haven't be easy practically ever, and she doubts they'll start to be now. he makes her wish, though.)
v.
black friday starts like most holidays do: bright and early. hannah tries her best to cling on tight enough to make her stay, and lex knows she must have seen something.
(it's been six months since lex dropped out, and she's still struggling to get food on the table. she wants to believe this fucking doll can solve all their problems, but wishful thinking will never outweigh the truth.)
there's a ticking clock in the back of her head; today needs to go right or things might just implode. the secret is, things’ll change, whether she likes it or not
vi.
she opens the box, and for just a second, the world is emerald city green.
(she never read the book or nothin’, but it was one of the three scratched dvds they had and was both her and hannah's favourite. one of these days, she'll open the door to a technicolor sky.)
in that briefest second, tendrils reach and coil in desperation, grasping for her mind without finding purchase. she blinks, ethan scares the shit out of her, and everything’s okay. they're making it out.
hannah says it's a bad day, and none of them can even conceptualize just how bad.
vii.
as she cowers behind the counter, lex can't help but reflect on everything that's brought her here.
(desperation. a deadbeat mother. an escape plan that's falling apart by the second.)
nothing good, that's for sure.
she curses under her breath as the shelves nearby shake– things have been escalating exponentially since that first fight, and she is not paid enough for any of this.
(checking her phone, she watches as the clock ticks over past noon. her shift’s officially over but the doors are barricaded and service has been out for the past half hour. if she wants to survive, she's gotta be smart.)
viii.
(across the mall, hannah foster screams, and ethan green takes his last breath. lex foster doesn't know, because she’s too busy trying to survive. as she mutters rushed grievances at an uncaring frank pricely, tom houston feels a knife pierce his abdomen.
in the hatchetfield trailer park, pamela foster still hasn't stirred. across town, paul matthews falls deeper in love as tim houston is getting to know his aunt for the first time, and they all couldn't be happier grace chastity couldn't make it that day.
by the day's end, they'll all be dead.)
lex takes a breath.
ix.
lex takes a breath, and the next thing she knows, she's on the ground before a crazed linda monroe.
(no, that's not quite right; her sycophants, sure, driven by cacophonous desperation for a fucking doll or a better life, but linda… linda’s eyes are clear. the only thing behind them is plain old power hungry greed.)
frank's blood spills out in front of her, and yeah, she's spent the better part of the past year hating him, but he doesn't deserve this.
no one does, not because of a fucking doll.
of course, that's when she finds sherman's hands around her neck.
x.
flash, bang–
(time stills. she reaches through the unknowable, arm stretching beyond comprehension, and for the briefest silver of time, she's peering through her sister's eyes.
it's an overwhelming wave of colour and light, a thousand possibilities all at once: her behind bars, her, running as far as she can, her, cowering as the world turns blue. her, ethan, and hannah, never once ending happily.
if this is what hannah sees everyday, and she gets the sense it is… well, everything makes a lot more sense.)
a gun’s in her hand, and she pulls the trigger.
xi.
lex runs into mr houston before she can wash the blood off of her hands.
(she's spent so much of the past year angry at him– it was easier to blame failing out on him than her own circumstance, but in this shattered fading light, he's just an equally shattered man, mourning more than he should.)
there's green in his eyes and she shivers, but it fades the more she speaks; by the end he takes the gun in her outstretched hand and she can finally take a shaky breath.
if she can make it out of this, anything’s possible.
xii.
in the end, all it takes is a flick of her lighter.
the mall burns brighter than anything she’s ever seen, a dozen bodies and the corpse of a god going up with it.
(lex still can’t quite breathe, and she doesn’t know what’s coming next, but her arms wrap around hannah. despite everything, they still have each other.)
they all huddle around mr houston as his watch ticks down to midnight.
“nine,” she mutters softly, and glances at her sister.
but hannah’s staring at the sky, and that’s the last thing she sees as the world goes white.