Uh-oh. Another coffee-induced epic fanfic.
Title: Memories and Dust (Prologue)
Fandom: Heroes (future, AU-ish)
Characters: Um. Most of them? The woman formerly known as Janice Parkman for this chapter.
Summary: Tonight, she'd dreamt of dying.
Disclaimer: If I owned Heroes, I wouldn't be crying into my student loan statements every month.
Rating: PG this chapter.
A/N: So here's a massive future-fic epic that has eaten my brain. It's going to feature most of the cast, will prominently feature an OC, and has been causing me to lose sleep this week.
Prologue: Portents
November 14, 2018
In the dead of night, in a suburb outside of Los Angeles, Janice McHenry opened her son’s door.
This had become an almost nightly ritual since Tom had died, four months ago. She’d wake up at some ungodly hour, utterly disoriented at the emptiness in her bed. It would take her long minutes to remember who she was, where she was, why she was alone. She’d throw on her robe and pad barefoot down the hall, turning on lights as she went because the house seemed less empty that way. She’d stand in front of Jacob’s door for a moment, tracing the wood with her fingers, then push it open.
Yellow light from the hallway stretched across the room, illuminating Jacob’s sleeping form. As always, she felt a momentary panic when he didn’t seem to be breathing. Then she heard him; the long slow inhale, the slight pause, and then the gusting exhale. She stayed in the doorway for a few minutes, comforted by the sound of her son’s breathing.
Smiling, she softly shut the door, and walked downstairs to the kitchen. She poured a glass of water and sipped at it, leaning against the counter.
The days were getting easy. Easier than they had been, anyway. It was always the nights that were the worst, going back to the bed she’d shared with Tom for nine years. And before that, that she’d shared with Matt. She wasn’t used to sleeping alone, and all the fears and anxieties that she successfully fought off or ignored during the day came back to haunt her.
Tonight, she’d dreamt of dying.
She’d had dreams like that before; when work got too rough, or she had a spectacular fight with Tom. She’d had them almost nightly when her relationship with Matt was in the slow stages of dying; when he had disappeared, reappeared long enough to fight with her, disappeared again. She knew these dreams were probably her brain telling her she was under too much stress.
But this one had been… different. Clearer. Sharper. Breaking glass and a scream, a jolting impact, dark wetness soaking her skin, and a sense of sinking into some engulfing abyss. And it affected her in a way that the other dreams hadn't.
If she died, who could she trust to take care of Jacob?
Janice was an only child. Her mother had died three years ago, her father when she was sixteen. Tom had a sister living in Texas somewhere, but Janice had only seen her at their wedding and at Tom’s funeral. Ten years in between, and so far as she could tell, there’d been almost no communication between them.
Maybe because it was so late at night, but she admitted to herself that there was person she still trusted, that she knew would be a good father. And who might understand better than anyone what Jacob really was. Maybe even better than her.
Acting on impulse, she went back to her room and sat at her desk. She rooted around in her drawer until she found a legal pad and a working pen.
Dear Matt:
She stopped and looked at those two words for a while. A large part of her didn’t want to go on. Didn’t want to make this a concrete possibility, didn’t want to even acknowledge this as possible.
Janice knew better than that. Steeling herself, she put the pen back on the paper and forced herself to write more.
If you’re reading this, then I’m dead and Jacob needs a home.
Next Part
Fandom: Heroes (future, AU-ish)
Characters: Um. Most of them? The woman formerly known as Janice Parkman for this chapter.
Summary: Tonight, she'd dreamt of dying.
Disclaimer: If I owned Heroes, I wouldn't be crying into my student loan statements every month.
Rating: PG this chapter.
A/N: So here's a massive future-fic epic that has eaten my brain. It's going to feature most of the cast, will prominently feature an OC, and has been causing me to lose sleep this week.
Prologue: Portents
November 14, 2018
In the dead of night, in a suburb outside of Los Angeles, Janice McHenry opened her son’s door.
This had become an almost nightly ritual since Tom had died, four months ago. She’d wake up at some ungodly hour, utterly disoriented at the emptiness in her bed. It would take her long minutes to remember who she was, where she was, why she was alone. She’d throw on her robe and pad barefoot down the hall, turning on lights as she went because the house seemed less empty that way. She’d stand in front of Jacob’s door for a moment, tracing the wood with her fingers, then push it open.
Yellow light from the hallway stretched across the room, illuminating Jacob’s sleeping form. As always, she felt a momentary panic when he didn’t seem to be breathing. Then she heard him; the long slow inhale, the slight pause, and then the gusting exhale. She stayed in the doorway for a few minutes, comforted by the sound of her son’s breathing.
Smiling, she softly shut the door, and walked downstairs to the kitchen. She poured a glass of water and sipped at it, leaning against the counter.
The days were getting easy. Easier than they had been, anyway. It was always the nights that were the worst, going back to the bed she’d shared with Tom for nine years. And before that, that she’d shared with Matt. She wasn’t used to sleeping alone, and all the fears and anxieties that she successfully fought off or ignored during the day came back to haunt her.
Tonight, she’d dreamt of dying.
She’d had dreams like that before; when work got too rough, or she had a spectacular fight with Tom. She’d had them almost nightly when her relationship with Matt was in the slow stages of dying; when he had disappeared, reappeared long enough to fight with her, disappeared again. She knew these dreams were probably her brain telling her she was under too much stress.
But this one had been… different. Clearer. Sharper. Breaking glass and a scream, a jolting impact, dark wetness soaking her skin, and a sense of sinking into some engulfing abyss. And it affected her in a way that the other dreams hadn't.
If she died, who could she trust to take care of Jacob?
Janice was an only child. Her mother had died three years ago, her father when she was sixteen. Tom had a sister living in Texas somewhere, but Janice had only seen her at their wedding and at Tom’s funeral. Ten years in between, and so far as she could tell, there’d been almost no communication between them.
Maybe because it was so late at night, but she admitted to herself that there was person she still trusted, that she knew would be a good father. And who might understand better than anyone what Jacob really was. Maybe even better than her.
Acting on impulse, she went back to her room and sat at her desk. She rooted around in her drawer until she found a legal pad and a working pen.
Dear Matt:
She stopped and looked at those two words for a while. A large part of her didn’t want to go on. Didn’t want to make this a concrete possibility, didn’t want to even acknowledge this as possible.
Janice knew better than that. Steeling herself, she put the pen back on the paper and forced herself to write more.
If you’re reading this, then I’m dead and Jacob needs a home.
Next Part