The Fade To Nothing

by gilligankane

Spoilers: let's pretend they got married, alright?

A/N: half of the stuff i think of, i don't even know why. it's like my brain is locked on Otalia and i can't shut it off. 

As you drift further into the past, my memory of you fractures and splinters until all I can clearly remember is not a picture but a feeling.
- pleasefindthis

“We're going to be late,” she reminds you, as if you didn't already know that. She sighs and puts on hand on her hip, giving you a look that says get your ass moving but you don't really do anything, just twiddle your thumbs a little more. She huffs again. “ Mom , let's go.”

You turn slowly and stare at her, tracing the lines of her face with your eyes, watching the creases in her forehead – too many creases for a twenty-year-old , you think – and the way she just watches you watch her.

She comes closer, speaking softer. “Mom, the movers are going to wonder where we are, and didn't you want to boss them around? Wouldn't you like that?” she adds with a smile.

You snort. “I'm not that much of a confrontation whore.” And then you frown. “Am I?”

She lets out a clear, solid laugh and slides on her lanky arms around your shoulders. “You are; you most certainly are. But don't worry, I think it's cool Lady, definitely cool.”

“You used to think that Power Ranger reruns were cool too,” you point out.

“ One time ,” she cries in mock agony, hugging you closer. “Seriously,” she says, her voice dropping low. “We're going to be late.”

“Won't be the first time,” you mutter.

“Let's not go there, alright?”

She throws your toothbrush in your overnight bag, the last thing that needs to be packed with all of your day-to-day necessities. Hers is already by the door, already ready to go out to the car.

She's always ready to go before you, but she doesn't expect you to change this late in the game.

“Mom,” she prompts again, holding the door open.

You take one last look around the Beacon, but if you're expecting memories – like a little version of Emma to suddenly dance across the living room in your mind – you don't get them. You get nothing but silence, but the cold reality that you spent most of your life, that your daughter spent most of her life living in a hotel room.

“Em, can we…” but you can't finish the question, because she's glaring at you, her gaze hard and angry.

“No, we can't.”

“Please,” you beg, but she isn't having any of it.

“No.”

“Baby…”

“Don't baby me Mom, we're not going.”

“Just once,” you whisper and, standing in the middle of the hallway, you see her shoulders sag and you know you've won.

“Just once,” she repeats, hard and quick and you're going to pay for this later, but you've won for now and you'll take what you can get when you can get it.

The drive is still as long as you remember it being, still as lonely and its made in silence because Emma doesn't want to talk to you and the radio died a couple of years ago and you just never fixed it.

You didn't have a reason too, not really.

She liked music – you were content to live without it.

She liked dancing around to it in the morning – you just wanted a cup of coffee.

She hummed under her breath – you cursed.

“We're here,” Emma points out, not really needing too, because you're already staring at it, as if it'll just jump or move or breathe or point at you and say I remember you .

Which is stupid, you know, because houses don't talk.

“Huh,” you say out loud, and Emma just leans back in her seat a little and asks what's wrong. “I don't know, I just thought it'd be…different, I guess,” you admit.

But it's the same, almost: the front lawn is still huge, but now it's overgrown with weeds and the grass is waist high; the porch still lines the entire front of the house, but the bench is leaning, broken, against the pillars of the structure; the windows still let you see into the very soul of the house, but they're all boarded up so it's a little harder to do that; the farmhouse is the same house you remember, but it's broken and sagging and just another condemned house left in this condemned town.

Springfield is drowning and you and Emma are just getting out before you go down with the ship.

“Alright, we've seen it. Can we go now?” Emma asks, her hand already on the key, ready to turn over the engine, but you don't actually hear her, because you're opening the door and sliding out of the seat, your feet taking you up the familiar walk.

You stand on the porch where Frank dropped to his knees and proposed to her .

You stand on the porch where Frank dropped to his knees and proposed to her and you stood in the window and watched .

“Mom,” Emma calls from the car, but you're not paying attention, because your hands are tracing over the door, over the knocker and the knob and now, now there are memories.

An eight-year-old Emma spins in a circle on the front lawn and calls out your name, her voice light-hearted and carefree.

A smiling Natalia hands you a cup of coffee, the cinnamon still wafting from the steaming mug.

Now the memories come.

Emma, still wearing her pajamas is running across the porch, feet wet with snow, dragging you to come look at the tracks Santa's reindeer made.

Natalia, still wearing a smile, calling you to come help her with the dishes.

Now , when you're leaving, the memories come.

A small bundle – Emma – under the covers, tells you she's not feeling well, that you need to play hooky again.

A serious expression – Natalia – on the couch, insists that you need to stop working and start being a mom for a moment.

Now , when you're leaving, when you've almost forgotten her, the memories come.

The smile of your daughter as she cuts out little pink hearts.

The cries of your best friend as she sits in the kitchen with the lights out.

The memories come because you left them here so long ago, boxed up like this house; left them in the hopes that you could move on with your life, move on from her .

But that's the thing about memories, you know. They don't stay trapped away forever – she doesn't stay trapped away forever and now, as the eight months – because it was only eight months, after all – come back in an instant so fast it knocks the air out of your lungs, you embrace the memories, savoring each one.

Like the way she grinned and her eyes lit up when she unwrapped the siding of the door.

Like the way she smiled at you over her coffee.

Like the way she stood there with her feet planted and said she'd die for your kid.

Like the way she never let you walk away without a fight.

Like the way she told you that you meant the world to her.

“Mom,” Emma calls, closer than before, her hand resting on your shoulder and then the other memories come.

Like decorating the house with the giant Congratulations Frank and Natalia sign.

Like sheparding Emma out of the house while she screamed that she just wanted to stay with Natalia but she couldn't because Natalia was married now.

Like not being able to look Natalia in the eyes because you told her you loved her and she married Frank anyway.

Like leaving for good and never coming back.

Those memories – you could do without them.

You snort: you thought you could do without her too, but that never really happened either.

You tried, date after date after date, but nothing stuck, nothing but her in the back of your mind, nothing but her smile and her eyes and her laugh.

And being here, in front of farmhouse, with your daughter, while she's out coddling her son and her new – her old husband, you correct, because it's been almost twelve years now – husband in Greece, or California, or wherever Buzz said they were this week, you're letting the memories come.

And go.

Twelve years too late, it seems, you're letting her go as your hand leaves the doorknob and you let Emma lead you back to the car.

Twelve years too late and too many tears cried, it seems, you're letting her go as Emma starts the car and backs out the rundown drive.

Twelve years too late and too many tears cried and too many house spent wondering what else you could have done and too many time reassuring Emma it wasn't her fault, you're letting her go.

Springfield disappears in your side view mirror and Ava is waiting in San Francisco.