Participants:
| Scene Title | A Letter to Write |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Melissa has a letter to write, but it brings up several old memories. |
| Date | September 15, 2010 |
It's been several weeks since Messiah attacked Biodynamics. Several weeks since Kendall died, saving Melissa's life. The pain is still there, still raw, but it's time for Mel to follow Abby's advice and let his parents know that he's gone.
She gets her notepad and goes out onto her bedroom balcony. To be cooped up in a dim room would just make it harder. And be more cliched. She can't be cliched. Besides, the house just brings up too many memories, of him.
"Well maybe you can be my mom then." Kendall sounds like he's half-serious, too! ….no hitting the invalids, Melissa.
Only he would call her mom and not get hit for it. Melissa shakes her head and sighs, sitting down and leaning up against the wall, her legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, the notepad set on her legs. The pen hovers over the page, but she frowns, unsure where exactly to begin. How to begin. This is the first time she's ever had to let anyone know that their son was dead, after all.
Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham,
There, that's a good start. They don't deserve a 'dear' or anything like that, the bastards. They really did a number on the poor kid. She remembers how he hated his ability when he first came to live with her. Lips curve as she remembers how that changed.
Well now, Kendall has another idea. He can one-up whoever did the ghost! He goes back into the shadows and grabs a pencil from his pocket, sketching something in the ground. He doesn't actually have to see it, he just has to know it's there. When he finishes and stands up, there's a thumping sound coming from the wall, and then a bit of brick seemingly falls out of the wall, a skeletal hand reaching out to try and grab an arm if anyone's close enough.
The temporal manipulator looks over her shoulder at the rest gathered in the basement and smirks with a good-natured roll of her eyes. "I'm here. There's nothing to worry about."
Except perhaps for that knocking on the other side of the wall. Odessa turns to look back at it with a confused expression. That cannot be ri— Holy fucking shit! What is the proper reaction to a skeletongrabbing the front of your dress?
You rip the arm out of its socket, that's what you do. Odessa reaches out and wraps her hand around carpals, ulna and radius and yank it toward her.
The skeleton is destroyed, and suddenly the wall is back to being whole and undisturbed, and the actual skeleton is where it was to begin with. That new sound everyone hears is Kendall suppressing laughter. He doesn't duck Melissa's whap, as it's kinda dark in here, but he can't suppress anymore and nearly falls down laughing.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. Back to work. She can't get distracted. She wants to just get this done and shove it in a mailbox so she can forget about it. She's not even sure why she's doing this. They may have been his parents, but they disowned him just for being evolved. Well, maybe she can give them a piece of her mind too.
I'm writing about Kendall. I'd call him your son, but he deserves better than that title. He was a good person. Far too good for the likes of you. He was smart, funny, nice, and braver than most adults I've met. If ever I've been proud to have known someone, I can say that I'm proud to have known Kendall.
That's not bad, she mused, rereading it. And it was truth too. She was proud to have known him. Even if knowing her is what got him killed. But despite that, she liked to think that she gave him some good times too. Fun times. Times worth remembering.
Kendall snickers as the icing appears on her face. "Well that was fun." he can't help but smirk at it. He goes to get his own slice of cake, which does not disappear.
What happens next is not something that anyone who knows Melissa could have ever forseen. It's just so unlike her, with as much as a clean freak she is. But she moves back to the table, picks up her plate…Then suddenly tries to shove the cake in Kendall's face, uncaring how much falls on the floor. For now anyway.
Kendall recoils when she shoves the cake into his face, and his automatic reaction is to do the exact same thing to her. FOOD FIGHT!
Instead of freaking about cake getting all over her house, Melissa busts out laughing and picks up a handful of cake, trying to shove it down the back of Kendall's shirt.
Kendall aughs when Melissa tries to shove cake down his shirt, and he tries to do the same to her, only he kinda blushes and doesn't instead since she's facing her and that would involve boobs.
The blushing just prompts another round of laughter and Melissa shakes her head, retreating and reaching for another handful of cake, throwing it at him. "You will not win this!"
"Sure I will!" Kendall grabs another handful of cake and throws it right at her face. "So who are you and what happened to Melissa?"
"I'm Melissa's evil twin, Elisa!" Mel says on another laugh, licking icing off her lips before she grabs another piece, and tries to rub it into the front of his shirt.
She smiles. She may hate messes, but that was definitely a fun time. A good memory. That was the way she should remember him. He really opened up after moving in with her. He didn't just mope and think about his parents.
You may have disowned him because he was evolved, but I took him in and loved him, regardless of what genes he carried. I did what you both should've done. He didn't choose to be evolved anymore than he chose to have you for parents. He didn't choose to have those who birthed him kick him out because he was special. And he was special.
Writing, Mel just gets more angry at the Cunninghams. She thought she'd gotten over her anger towards them. She took Kendall in, that's what mattered. Not his stupid parents. “C'mon Mel. Get over it. One letter, then you never have to think about them again,” she mutters to herself, eyes closing as she takes a few deep breaths. “Think happy thoughts.”
"…that will set your night on fire?" the doves burst into flame, turning into phoenixes as the area turns into a grassy field with a starry sky overhead.
"Of course not, because your man is not me. But he can smell like me." he lifts up his hand, suddenly holding the Old Spice deodorant. He smiles and even gets that little sparkle on his teeth, and then….
"Kendall, what are you doing? You've been in there for an hour!" must be Melissa knocking on the door.
And just like that, suddenly it's skinny little Kendall, holding a deodorant and wearing a towel and generally…. looking not manly at all. "I-I'll be right out!" his voice sounds a little high pitched there, but then again, if anyone ever found out he did this, he'd be taunted about it UNTIL THE DAY HE DIED.
Man, he was so embarrassed when she confronted him about that he illusioned the floor swallowing him. That was a memory she'd love to keep until the day she died. Pity there wouldn't be anymore like it.
Her head falls back against the wall and she looks blankly across the street at nothing. “Dammit Kendall. You should've let me die and saved yourself. I'm not worth saving,” she whispers, her chest tight with the loss.
However, since you two are his parents, a friend felt that it was only right that you should know that he died. He died a hero, trying to save the life of someone who actually DID care for him. He died at the hands of people like you who hate the evolved. And he will be remembered fondly by those who befriended him after you kicked him out of your house. I only wish that he could've died knowing that you both loved him. He deserved all the love you could've given him. It's your loss that you lost him, and in a way I'm grateful since it meant that he was able to come live with me and take the place of the brother I never had.
It's on paper. It's real now. There may have been no body to bury, no grave for Melissa to grieve at, but it doesn't make it any less real. She'd cry, but she has no tears left. She's cried more in the last few weeks than in her previous twenty-six years of life. All because of one seventeen year old boy who delighted in calling her 'mom'.
A gun is being pointed at Melissa, and she isn't looking that way. Kendall is about to yell, but with all the gunfire being fired and causing chaos she likely won't hear, so he leaps towards her, yelling her name anyway. Of course, yelling naturally breaks his illusion of invisibility since people can tell he's there, and then he's where Melissa is. Hands come out and shove at her, sending her flying, just as the gun is fired.
Kendall gets jerked backwards as he's shot in the chest, crimson quickly soaking through his shirt, and he lands in a heap on the ground. And unlike Peter, his wounds don't heal, and a thick puddle forms underneath him. It was a nearly perfect shot, as well, leaving no time to heal him even if someone was close by with the power.
Hearing her name Melissa's head jerks up, then around. And just when Kendall is leaping in front of her, she's starting to bring her pistol up. She would never have made it in time, and she goes sprawling anyway when he slams into her. After it registers that Kendall's not only there, but that he's been shot, she screams, "NO!" in a voice full of anguish and rage both.
She doesn't seem to hear Kris's call to the Messiah members, instead scrambling to Kendall, tugging him into her lap, uncaring that she's getting blood all over her — Kendall's blood. Instead she looks up at the FRONTLINE member who did the shooting, hatred emanating from every fiber of her being as she attacks him in return. Not with her pistol, that's forgotten. No, she wants him to feel what Kendall's feeling, only intensified a great deal, and she has the means to do it.
Unfortunately it means that she isn't moving towards Kris, her only thought in that moment revenge for Kendall.
She can still feel his blood on her hands. After all the showers and hand washings she's had since then, she can still feel it from time to time. Still has nightmares, seeing him laying there, red blossoming over his chest.
“No, Mel. Open your eyes. Don't see it. Finish the letter. Move on. You have to move on,” she whispers, running a hand through her hair and looking down at the letter. It's good enough. They don't deserve more.
Sincerely,
Kendall's TRUE family
The page gets torn off, and Melissa folds it carefully and puts it into an envelope. She writes The Cunninghams on the front and sighs. Now all she has to do is go shove it in their mailbox. Then she never has to think about those idiotic people again.
But she'll never forget their son.