Work Text:
The stretch marks on Joan’s belly tell a story she isn’t ready to hear. For two years, she’s avoided mirrors, silly as it sounds. Each time she walked past a darkened window or a reflection in a bathroom, it startled her– someone’s gaunt face staring back. This person always seemed very much unlike herself. So her own body, scar-covered and unfamiliar to her, seemed as though it would be an even more troubling undertaking.
She finds, now, standing in front of the mirror in the big bathroom in the manor, she isn’t as confused as she’d have thought– just intrigued, mostly. Her body is attractive, objectively speaking. Lithe and muscular in the way that dancers are. Oh… was she a dancer in life? She thinks she remembers– a flash of something: Swan Lake . Tchaikovsky’s sharp strings an assault on her ears. Was she dressed in black– or white?
The blemishes are not news to her. It’s hard to avoid noticing one’s own freckles and scars. She tends to avoid thinking of their stories, though. She finds herself doing so, now. This one on her thigh, how did it happen? A stab-wound in the abdomen, was she attacked? And when? The scars on her face and neck are the most brutal (in her opinion, at least) though, being the most obviously visible, she’s had to get used to those quickly. She thinks of those ones’ stories even less– it doesn’t matter now.
But the stretch marks… those taunt her. Like little pink threads unraveling in her mind; she can’t quite keep the pictures from fraying at the edges, can’t quite stitch it back together. She knows, now, because Babylon told her: she was pregnant once upon a time. Her belly swelled to carry life. Her body grew to embrace a child– to hold it and keep it safe as it grew. Like a bud, hiding a flower inside until it’s ready to bloom. Like a desert that hides a well.
It’s strange. To know this thing and not remember it. It feels like such an important thing. Something everyone remembers. Something no one should forget. How could she forget? What kind of monster could forget their baby–
She gasps for air, suddenly, and doubles over to cling to the sides of the cold porcelain sink. She lets the bile in her throat rise just enough for catharsis, lets her heart jump up into the back of her mouth just enough to feel it, for a moment, then swallows it down. Breathe in, breathe out. Stare into the unstained white basin and let it blind you. Be calm.
She turns the faucet on. The rush of the water cleanses her. She cups her hands under for a moment, and thinks of the river Jordan. She splashes her face and thinks of baptism.
When is cooking downstairs, Orion hums a lullaby in the room adjacent. Here and now, Joanie. Here and now. Here and now, you have no baby. She is gone, and you are here. Here and now, you are repenting, you are cleansing, you are free, and you will be forgiven. This is merely Purgatory. Merely in-between. The cool water trickles down her neck and chest and shocks her back into this body. This stranger’s body. This dead body. She shakes her head.
Stigmata scars upon her neck. Nails through her palms. Whoever did this to her must have thought her close to God. Or, perhaps, they were giving her a chance to be. Redemption: the act of saving or being saved from sin. Redemption: gaining something back in exchange for the clearing of a debt.
This other woman’s skin is irrelevant. This other woman’s body is irrelevant. Joan’s redemption is forever. She will give this body the space to tell its story, but only that. It doesn’t matter anymore. It
cannot
matter anymore. She will keep moving, for her soul, for her baby, for the promise of rest, and she will be grateful to this body for getting her there. She leans back and traces a stretchmark with the tips of her fingers, feather-light, gentle, compassionate.
“I’m sorry,” she says, to someone she can’t possibly know. To Helena. To the other woman who occupied this body, perhaps. To the first man she killed. To the last man she killed. To Helena. Helena. Helena. Her palm lays flat against her stomach. “Thank you for the time you were here. Even if I don’t remember.” Her voice is thick. Heavy. She feels so, so heavy.
She sinks to the floor, slowly. The cold tile on her bare legs makes her jump a bit. “Silly…” she mutters to herself. “I’m awfully silly, aren’t– I?” She chokes; she cries. The tears fall just like–
a well. A river. Baptism.
She cries, and cries, and cries.