Until the Bleeding Stops

Until the Bleeding Stops

Rachel woke when it was still dark outside her grimy window. She sat up next to the still-sleeping Ian and looked around, confused. Then everything hit her, physically hit her, so that she fell back onto the bed and bit her pillow to stop keep herself from screaming.

Last night... Rachel remembered seeing the hideous, jewel-like mark, remembered picking Ian up and running, and not even feeling his weight in her arms...

They couldn't be gone, no... noooo! This--this wasn't supposed to happen! That stupid passcode was supposed to stay in the back of her mind forever, and what had happened was supposed to be one of those things she knew how to handle but wouldn't need to, like lightening bolts in open fields and strangers trying to lure her into their cars. It wasn't--it wasn't real. It simply couldn't happen. She really wouldn't ever see them again? They were just ripped away, one second there, unchanging, untouchable, and the next... gone? It was exactly like the ground had fallen from under her feet.

She had run to the house... that man, Lupin, had stopped her...

"Rachel! Are you Rachel Connor?"

"Where are they? What happened?"

"Are you Rachel Connor?"

"...I... w-who are you?"

"I knew--your father--in London."

The struggle for breath, the glowing coal of dread rapidly thawing the icy block of disbelief...

Images where flashing before her eyes; she saw her parents, laughing with her, talking to her, and she wanted to scream. Waves of sorrow and overwhelming guilt dragged her under their whitecaps. All she wanted to do was run to them like a little girl (Mama! Daddy!) and cry, but they were gone, like fog between her outstretched fingers... no, no!

They were talking to her, telling her Chris was coming, and that they were taking her to their headquarters. The vague realization that she was going to London had been little more than mist floating through her frantic thoughts. The dingy street, the sweeping handwriting, the house appearing... another crowd... her father! God, she had seen her father!

The memory of him managed to suspend things for a second, just as his arrival had done the night before. Rachel quieted for a moment and let his image sink in. She marveled at the thought--this was her father. She felt very odd.... She didn't quite know what to think of him. He had sat there so coolly, had hardly looked at her after he recovered from the shock, but the idea that his blood flowed in her veins was gripping. She was drawn to him, but a bit reluctant... and a little scared. Then, suddenly, she wanted to see him, talk to him... or maybe just sit with him for a little while. Her father...

But all too soon, she began to feel the sharp gnawing of her memories again; she couldn't escape.... Rachel curled tightly beneath the covers and shook with strangled cries, spinning wildly through her black grief and feeling incredibly, startlingly alone.

When the tears finally started to ebb, Rachel began to drift out of her final emotions (guilt over doing this to her parents and brothers) and toward a blank, worn-out numb. She lay back on her damp pillow and was simply unable to feel anymore. Before she fell into a merciful sleep, she felt faintly awed at the fact that she would get over this someday...

The razor-edged blade of grief had been stabbed into her heart, but it would heal--someday. Rachel had a lot to do before she reached that time, but for now, all she could do was try to hold on until the bleeding stopped.