Limbo

ASHLEY:

My brain locks up for just a second when I hear the question, and then I remember: she's been dead for over a year, and apparently hasn't been able to make anybody realize that she's here.

"Yes, I can see you," I reply. "Rachel, right?"

She doesn't say anything, just nods, but her expression has changed from surprise to a look of such relief that it actually makes my chest tighten up. I can't even begin to imagine how frustrating, and lonely, it must be to have people all around, but not be able to get anyone's attention. It's actually a pretty impressive accomplishment that she's apparently kept her sanity, I'm not sure I could pull it off under those conditions.

"I'm sorry I couldn't stop them before you got hurt," she says, looking down at her feet. "I didn't know that there were two of them, and I was calling the police, and turning on the lights to try to get somebody's attention."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," I tell her. "If you hadn't done whatever you did to distract those guys, I wouldn't be here now. You saved my life, and I sincerely appreciate it. Thank you."

She lifts her head to look at me, but then almost instantly turns back toward the window. "Um, Ashley... maybe you should think about getting dressed." she says, and I suddenly remember that I'm standing here with dripping wet hair, in nothing but a towel.

"Yeah, you're probably right," I say, and walk over to the dresser to grab a pair of boxers. I pull those on, then go to the closet and put on some jeans and a Crue T-shirt. When I come back out, she's still looking out the window, so I say, "You can turn around, I'm decent now."

She turns to look, and then moves toward me, stopping just a few inches away. She lifts her hand, and it feels like a light breeze is moving my hair. "Oh, your poor throat," she murmurs. "I'm so sorry this happened to you."

"Rachel, I already told you, there's nothing for you to be sorry for," I reply, and I'm sort of confused when she looks at me again, with a very sad, almost resigned expression.

"Yes, there is, since it's probably my fault they were here."

Now, this is something I definitely didn't expect. "Okay, you're going to have to explain that one to me," I inform her. "Because I am totally confused. How could it be your fault the house got broken into?"

"All right, I can do that. But before I do, why don't you get one of your notepads and a pencil. That way you don't hurt yourself by talking too much, and it'll look like you're working on your drawings if Charlie or Susan come up to check on you, instead of sitting here talking to yourself."

I have to admit, she has a good point, so I go sit in the desk chair and flip the pad to a blank page. "Okay, I'm listening," I say, and she comes over to stand next to the desk. She tells me about her father, and leaving his crazy cult, and how she and the others wound up getting shot just down the road right after they left our show. I listen to everything, and in some ways I'm even more confused than I was before she started talking.

"So your husband's own brother set him up to get shot? And your father sent them out to kill you guys? Who the hell does something like that?"

"A bunch of delusional lunatics, that's who," she says flatly. "And no, he sent them to kill Sawyer, and anybody else who got in the way, I wasn't supposed to get hurt. I actually stood down there in the living room, just a couple of feet from my own body, and watched him beat Sawyer's father with his belt for disobeying his orders."

"But why?" I scribble. "And how would that make you responsible for those guys showing up here?"

"Because I knew the guy who actually tried to choke you, he's one of my father's more obnoxious toadies, so I'm guessing that they were looking for some things that I hid from him, that I know he wants," she states. "And he didn't want me hurt because I was supposed to be given to Ur'Geshthet."

"To who? Who, or what the fuck is that, exactly?"

"That is the demon lord that they've been worshipping since my psycho bitch grandmother started the group when my father was a kid," she explains. "Their whole purpose is to figure out a way to get enough power to take over the country, or the world, if possible. He announced when I was about ten that he had acquired an item that would help him do that, at a certain time. It would allow Ur'Geshthet to take over the body of whoever he decided was worthy, and make it possible for him, or it, or whatever, to father a child on his 'chosen vessel', who would give them the power they needed."

I just gape at her for a second, because my brain literally cannot form words. When I heard that a 'religious group' was responsible for what happened, I knew there was a certain degree of crazy involved, but this is off the charts!

"And I'm guessing that was supposed to be you?" I query. "Why, just because you're his daughter?"

"No, because I look just like my fucking grandmother, and that convinced him that I'm just her reincarnation," she snarls. "Apparently she was supposed to do that years ago, but she died before it happened, and I was their second chance. My father informed everyone that the demon had chosen Donald to be his 'flesh form', and that it would happen as soon as I turned eighteen."

"Who's Donald? And how did you manage to get out of it?"

"Donald is Sawyer and Wade's dad, and I never liked him from the first second I met him. He always gave me the creeps, and I made sure never to be anywhere alone with him. And to answer your other question, I had him convinced that I would go along with anything he said, so I was actually allowed to have a job in town, to bring in money. But what he didn't know was that even though he'd kicked Sawyer out of the group, I would still see him when I was in town, and we made a plan to take off together. I was madly in love with him, and if my father had ever figured that out, I would've been locked up and watched constantly, and he would've been dead."

She pauses for a second, then continues, "I left to 'go to work' three days before my eighteenth birthday, but instead of doing that, Sawyer met me in town, and we took off and hid out at an old hunting cabin that Ed's grandpa owned until after my birthday. Then we came back into town, got our license, and got married. My father was absolutely livid, and he demanded that the police bring me back, but they told him that I was legally an adult, and allowed to do whatever I pleased. But most of them hated his guts, so I doubt that they would've gone out of their way to help him anyway. So we got a place in Edmonton, and never came back out this way, until that night."

I sit for a couple of minutes, trying to wrap my head around what I've just heard, while she stands by my chair, looking as though she expects me to yell at her or something. No wonder the poor girl feels guilty for everything, after all of the crap she's had to deal with. "Rachel, none of this makes you responsible for anything that's happened, to me or to the others," I write. "You said yourself that Sawyer made the decision to try to help his brother, and if he grew up here too, he knew the risks as well as you did. It's not your fault that you had to put up with all of your dad's craziness, so try to stop thinking that way, all right?"

She looks at me sort of disbelievingly for a second, and then, in a very small voice, asks,"So you're not mad at me, then?"

"No, I'm not mad at you. But I would like to ask you a question, and I hope it won't upset you, or make you angry with me."

"What is it?"

"Can you tell me... where you are? I was told that nobody could find either one of you."

She seems to be a bit startled by my question, but after a couple of seconds she shakes her head and replies. "No, I don't. As far as I knew, Sawyer was still in the truck with the others. And all I know about myself is that they carried me out of the house to the car, but I couldn't follow them, so I don't have a clue where they went. I heard my father tell the others to 'take care of their mistake', so I assumed that they were going to go hide the truck, or maybe burn it. So do you mean that they actually found Ed and Mandy's bodies? And Paige?"

"Do you mean that you never heard? The little girl survived, apparently she was the one who told them who did it. I guess that was how they managed to catch up with them as quick as they did."

I see that look of relief pass over her face again, and she says, "Really? Paige is all right? I wish everyone had managed to survive, but I guess if it could only be one of us, I'm glad it was her. She's just a kid, she never did anything to anybody to deserve something like that."

She's pacing around the room, and finally I say, "Do you think that you could maybe sit down or something, I'm getting exhausted just watching you. Don't you get tired or anything now?"

"Oops, sorry!" she says, and sits down on the windowsill. "No, I don't really get tired unless I try to do something that requires more energy that I usually use, like stabbing Terry, and tossing that stuff around the kitchen. Bored, yes. Angry, also yes. Lonely, not just yes, but hell yes! But not tired, really."

Now that she seems to have calmed down a bit, I decide to try to lighten things up a bit, and try to find some other topics to talk about, so I ask her if she's the one who has been moving things around in our rooms the last few days, and she acknowledges that she was. She also admits to looking through my sketchbook while I was gone, and says that she likes my drawings, and definitely would have worn some of the items.

She comes back over to stand next to me, and flips to one of the pages, which happens to have a sketch that I've been thinking about scrapping, because I don't care for how it's turned out. She points to it, and says, "If you don't mind me putting my two cents in, Ashley, this isn't a bad design, but it would look much better if it were laced up instead of buttoned, and maybe had a bit of boning to support the bust."

I look at it, and suddenly, I can picture it exactly the way she just suggested. "You're absolutely right," I tell her. "That's exactly what it needs, but how did you know?"

"My mom taught me how to sew when I was little, and the job I had was in an alteration shop, so I've actually tweaked some things from time to time," she explains. "I always kind of liked to take things that didn't fit right, or that I didn't necessarily like the style, and make them look the way I wanted them to."

"Me too. So I think I'm going to fix this drawing while it's still clear in my mind," I announce. Then I look around the desk, and say, "As soon as I can find a pencil, that is."

She looks around and says, "There it is, I'll get it!" She dashes across the room, and I see that I apparently got a bit distracted at some point and left it on the nightstand. She picks it up and starts back toward me, and just as she gets past the end of the bed, the door opens, and I look up to see Andy and CC standing in the doorway, staring at Rachel.

Or so I think, until Andy raises an eyebrow, gives me a lopsided grin, and says, "Great prank, Ash, I can't even see the strings."


A/N: I know I'm a bit early this week, but I have 8 hours of overtime tomorrow, and then my friend's birthday party is tomorrow night, so I decided that it was better to be early than late. Enjoy, lovely readers, C-YA next week!

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