Chapter Text
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Seven is a lucky number.
Her name is Amelia Watson, but her numbers are 727. There’s billions of other people who wear her face, hair, and her voice. She’s used to hearing numbers being called instead of her given name. There’s no one around to nickname her Ame.
She’s the Amelia without a myth.
It’s a scary title, one she takes great pains to avoid. She dresses the same as every ordinary detective. She doesn’t style her hair or wear any notable accessories. She’s afraid that if she does anything like that, she’ll become marked. It’s who she’ll become. There’s Amelia’s who wear blue beanies, Amelia’s who garden, and Amelia’s who wear stolen purple sweaters. They blur together for her.
It’s about as blurry as the bar countertop. Amelia thinks that’s about time she stops ordering shots. She doesn’t want to present herself as a drunken layabout. She wants to maintain as much of an image as she can, even if it shambles and coughs. She’s a detective. She doesn’t want to become this pool of alcoholic sorrow. It helps her stop thinking, that’s what matters. She doesn’t want to think about happier Amelia’s, Amelia’s who didn’t spend many prospective years searching for girls that don’t exist.
She searched the cult of the Ancient Ones but there’s no priestess among their ranks, only a council of priests that resemble nothing like the girl she’s looking for. Atlantis sits on top of the ocean, whole and healthy. She spent countless sleepless nights scouring the registry there. No one named Gawr Gura exists. KFP isn’t present either. She gets desperate. After years of careful search and left fruitless, alone, hungry for any sign, it’s her alone at a bridge in the blistering cold, the bite of ocean water, hope -
None of them exist. No reaper, only a hospital bed and a carefully asked do you have any friends or family?
She doesn’t. She doesn’t even have a house, but she’s fine living out of her office. It’s not a very heroic looking office connected to a golf club. Her bed is a fold out couch, or depending on her mood, the floor. Her mission had been to find happiness. It obviously involved four immortals if every other Amelia and her golden retriever smile was to go by. What happens when they don’t exist?
She doesn’t know what she’s going to do.
“Another shot?” The bartender asks, but he’s asking her in a way that means business. He’s hoping she won’t. She knows better not to push it. She gets out her wallet instead. There’s dried blood over the side of it. She pays in cash. Her wallet hasn’t anything important aside from that. She keeps all her cards and documents in her coat pocket. Better that way then in the hands of some street thug that takes her shit.
“Keep the five.” The bartender says.
“It’s a tip.”
“Keep it.”
Oh, she must look bad. She grumpily takes it back, even though it does nothing for her mood to have some cash to her name again. She takes her pitiful self off her stool in all her tumbling, drunken glory and saunters her way out the door.
Perhaps, if she were normal and had gathered friends for a drinking binge, she’d be hailing a taxi of some sort. She's far from normal at this point, beyond just the golden watch sitting in her coat pocket. She's the kind of normal that scans the street, that searches for what she wants to see and when she finds it, she wants to fight it.
It's a group of three she spots, hoods up and quiet compared to the other drunken happy goers down the road. She reads it in their body language- they feel just as miserable as her. They aren't the type to run and call the police when in a fight. Wild dogs don't go looking for masters, they go for the throat.
Maybe it's the alcohol. Maybe it's the poorly lit streetlights, haunted by two in the morning and pierced by headlights roaring up and down the street. It's a lot of things with her. If she had someone to talk to, they'd be put off by her bruises. If they stick around, they surely wouldn't like this.
She always throws the first punch.
She lands the last one too, but she does it while vomiting all over their torso while a knife sticks out of her stomach. The entire alleyway is a mess of blood and odor. No one is dead, but she ends up leaving that alleyway a lot more angry then she was going into it. Blowing off steam in some drunken brawl ended up worsening her mood.
The knife is a consolation prize.
She makes it halfway home when it starts to rain. She doesn't want to get caught out in it like a bad tasting story. It's too dramatic for a split lip and a bruised cheek. It's way too much for the way she pulls her coat over herself to hide the knife in her gut. Luck isn't on her side when her vision starts to blur. One moment she's walking down the street, the next, she's on her back. Rain water is cold against her cheeks. It sticks to her eyelashes. The alcohol has numbing the pain, but the misery of the weather is bringing her back to sobriety and fuck, it hurts. It's not just the wound. It's the pain of nearly thirty years wasted on a fruitless search. It's envy and hissing jealousy. She wants to scream and throw her watch at the wall. The thought of it has her lip curling. So dramatic. Get off your ass and do something. The ground is alarmingly comfortable, which isn't really a good sign when there's more blood than water on her at this point.
There's an umbrella overhead.
Amelia blinks slowly. It's a black umbrella, dark enough it almost blends in with the sky. The streetlight above her illuminates it. It looks like the wing of a bat.
A woman with her face and hair crouches down beside her. She's holding the umbrella up over both of them. Amelia isn't prepared for a visit from a doppelganger. It’s one thing to see her face in the mirror, bruised and beaten, and it’s another to see her face if she had lived through a different life. Unmarred. No scars. A living doll. She has a biting comment in her mouth, but she's so struck by this one's appearance that she has nothing to say.
She's dressed like a young lady, a black dress that goes down to her knees. Delicate jewels tied back into a blonde bun. It's her face, her face, it's a porcelain mask. It's a creepy expression to see on the face of Amelia Watson. She doesn't know if she prefers this or some happy go lucky asshole.
“What do you want?” Amelia bites out.
Lady tilts her head, an owlish cadence to her that doesn't look very cute with that soulless look in her eye, “... I came to visit.”
“To what?” She dreads the idea of her becoming a social pariah. She's not an exhibit at a zoo. She doesn’t visit Wattropolis enough to warrant attention at all.
“Curiosity.” Lady says. “You're the Amelia without a Myth.”
Oh. It’s somehow worse.
Amelia can’t even cough up a response, her teeth clenched tightly together. It’s not hard to swallow don’t the nasty words in her throat. The pain is making her tense.
Lady looks at her, “You’re angry.”
“Don’t start.” Amelia snaps. Her voice breaks awkwardly down the middle. She wants to tear at her own neck. “Must be so funny to come and see me, right? Must make you feel real good about yourself.”
“It doesn’t.” She says blankly.
“As if I fucking care.” Amelia says. “What’s your deal? Did Halloween come early in your timeline?”
There’s not a flicker in her expression. It’s frustrating. At least frown or something, you freak. Lady says, “I lost my Myth.”
Amelia… isn’t expecting that. She should, but the alcohol isn’t making her think straight. She should have recognized what Lady was wearing. Black for a funeral, not a costume party. Her fingers dig into her coat, her nails hurting raw against leather.
“Sucks.” Amelia says.
Lady hums, “You need help.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Okay.”
“Are you just here to pity me?” Amelia snaps. The lackluster responses were grating on her. She wanted someone to be angry. More than anything, it’d be nice to have her lights punched out again. “Don’t come to me looking for empathy, I don’t even know you.”
Gently, Lady is reaching down. Amelia tenses, her hand coiled in her coat drawing it over her wound. While attacking and being attacked was the agenda, she squirrels away from the idea of someone touching the weapon impaled in her abdomen. Lady’s hand pauses in midair, her gaze steady.
“I don't pity you.” Lady says, her voice toneless. It blends in seamlessly with the rain. “I envy you.”
Amelia swats at her hand. Lady tucks it into her lap as if she wasn't phased by it, as if there wasn't blood smeared down her palm.
“If I could stand, I'd punch you.” Amelia bites.
Lady exhales quietly, “Would that make you feel better?”
No. “Are you just touring around sad hopeless timelines to feel better?”
“No.”
“Just-” Amelia flounders, frustrated, but tired. The fire inside her is flickering the longer the rain soaks into her bones. This is an awful way to go if she keeps howling like a wild animal at a girl with a personality shaped like a brick wall. She exhales, forcing that anger away, forcing herself into that meager detective spirit that gets her enough money to pay her tabs.
“You have a home?” Amelia asks snarkily.
Lady says, “Yes.”
“Take me to your bathroom.” Amelia says. “I’ll order pizza to pay for all the blood on your carpet, unless your timeline is trash.”
Lady gives no reaction, but there’s something in her eyes like what Amelia said was startling. Not in a bad way. She’s taking a golden watch out of her dress pocket. Amelia goes quiet at the sight of it. The glass face of it is shattered, a spiderweb of cracks going down the metal trim and up to the chain. It’s not a pretty sight. The watch reflects the traveler. If the watch breaks, it’s only because that Amelia is dead.
Amelia glances at this woman warily. Just who the hell are you?
“You might throw up.” Lady says softly.
“I hope it’s on your shoes.” Amelia retorts.
It’s not a smile Lady wears, but something about it has her taking Lady’s hand when it’s offered to her. It feels like she’s signed her name on a contract, even though there’s no paper or ink. It’s just a visit. She owes no one anything, and yet-
Time travel wraps gold around them. Amelia stumbles against a pretty white picket fence, wincing as her hands leave bloody prints where she touches. The house in front of her is a two story home with a blue roof. Glass windows are covered by blue curtains. It’s cozy looking, like a family lives there. A garden lies in front of it, rainbow colors vibrant with health. Amelia is soaked from rain, but here it’s dry. The night sky twinkles above. The moon is a sliver in the sky.
Lady unlocks the gate with a little silver key. Amelia snorts, cause the fence barely goes up to her hips. She could step over it without an issue.
It’s four steps up the porch to the front door. There’s a pair of chairs and a bench outside. Amelia can imagine a space for five people here. It hurts, not in a way that makes her want to spit force, but in a way that makes her want to recede into a shell. Lady unlocks the door with the same key.
Somehow, this house is worse than a grave.
It’s the shoes by the door she notices immediately. High heels that are too red, blue sneakers, several different flats, it’s an assortment of stories that no longer exist. A coat rack holds the item that stops her dead in her tracks.
A blue hoodie hangs from it. Lady moves around it as if it’s not there. Amelia follows warily. There’s stairs right at the front entrance leading up to the second floor. Lady takes her through the living room. A L-shaped couch hugs around a TV. The TV hangs over a fireplace. It’s uniquely comfortable here. The walls have bookshelves overloaded with material, some books laid haphazardly against them. A bathroom hangs off the side. Lady opens the door for her and she limps galiantly inside.
“Thanks.” Amelia says gruffly. It’s getting too emotional for her. She fixes this by closing the door on her doppelganger. She thinks that’s the end of it, but all she can imagine is Lady standing there staring at the door and it bothers the hell out of her. She opens it again. Lady stares at her.
“Shut up.” Amelia says. “Help me pull this out, god.”
Lady expression warms, just slightly, and she closes the door behind her.
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She’s not a good person. She knows that. She goes looking for trouble and she causes trouble. She’s the type of asshole that will smoke a cigarette in a bathtub that’s not hers while there’s blood going rusty brown on the floor. Amelia knows this keenly. She doesn’t do anything to change this. Messed up creepy house anyway.
Lady doesn’t do anything about this either. It’s a little irritating when Amelia’s expecting her to complain about the cigarette. To at least remark on anything, you smell like blood, you look like death, you’re an idiot- something. Instead, she gathers Amelia’s clothes into a bin and carries them off to the washer. The bloody knife is left in the sink.
Amelia exhales. The alcohol is burned out of her system at this point and now she’s grouchy. Her abdomen throbs with pain. She drags ash with her fingers over the rim of the tub. When Lady returns, it’s with a bowl. She places it silently on the toilet seat, directly next to the tub. Amelia snorts, but she obliges, tossing her cigarette inside.
“What are you gonna do with the knife?” Amelia asks. “I’m not keeping it.”
Lady glances over at it. When she takes the hilt of it in hand, she looks scary. A person that’s barely a person holding a knife coated in blood. Amelia finds her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. A stray thought occurs to her at that moment. Were you the one that killed your Myth?
“It’s damaged.” Lady says. “I’ll throw it away.”
“Alright.”
Lady grabs a towel from one of the cabinets. It’s a blue color with fish on it. Amelia’s lip curls the moment it's offered to her.
“I’m gonna get blood all over that.”
“It’s mine.” Lady says.
“That doesn’t look like yours.”
“I made it.”
Amelia raises an eyebrow. She leans closer to inspect it, pink water sloshing against her elbows as she examines it. There’s a different kind of stitching that’s definitely not made by a factory. There’s a personality to it that looks like it wasn’t sold in a store. Amelia glares at Lady.
“Whatever.” She snaps. She takes the towel grumpily. Lady steps out of the bathroom to fetch her clothes. She’s morbidly curious which Myth she’s gonna borrow from. She can’t tell at all when the clothes offered to her look specifically Amelia tailored.
“What’s this?” Amelia asks.
“I made them.”
“Are these yours? You made them?”
“I made them.” She repeats. “They’re yours now.”
Amelia makes disagreeable noises about that, but she’s annoyed with talking with the resident brick wall. She grabs the change of clothes and sourly waits for Lady to leave the bathroom. The shirt is different then her white one, more creamy in appearance and the sleeves don’t have cuffs at the end. Instead of a skirt, it’s a pair of pants. She changes slowly, hissing everytime she aggravates her wound. It’s a comfortable fit. Lady is a little thinner than her. She wonders who this was actually meant for.
She steps out to the rumble of the washer making the lights flicker above her. She squints up at it wearily. Down the hall, Lady is setting a clean bin down.
“Is this place structurally sound?” Amelia asks tonelessly.
“We built it together.” Lady says. “Long ago.”
That doesn’t answer anything, but Amelia had nothing to comment on that. Every step backwards or forwards was a landmine with this woman. Granted, the explosion was about as deafening as being breathed on. Amelia leans against the wall, her hair dripping onto her shoulders. Unsettlingly across from her, like a mosaic morgue, is an assortment of pictures. She recognizes each girl in them with no trouble. The distinctive colors of Myth are hard to ignore. There’s nothing unique about them either. There’s a picture of Ina painting on the porch. Calli posing in front of a lawnmower like that was at all worthy of being a photo. Kiara in a dress, dancing by herself, but her expression is serene and the sheer content to dance in tailored golds and oranges makes her look ephemeral. Gura’s birthday.
Amelia looks away. Lady doesn’t acknowledge the photos as she walks down the hall towards the kitchen. Amelia follows. She’s keeping a wary eye on the house as she does. The walls around her felt like the husk of a corpse. The lights flickering didn’t add much to the imagination.
Lady grabs a kettle and moves to the stove.
Amelia mutters, “Does that thing even work?”
“Do you take your tea with sugar?” Lady asks instead.
“I don’t want any tea.”
“Mm.” Lady stands on her toes to fetch cups from the cabinet above. There’s something in her movement that’s odd, but it’s too quick for Amelia to properly parse before she’s pouring hot water into the cups. Amelia observes all of this, a grouchy shadow and wishing her clothes would get cleaned faster. Lady, despite bricks and stones being her natural habitat, seems to have also adjusted to being completely and totally deaf. Or stubborn. She’s placing two cups of tea on the table and gesturing to an empty chair.
“You can sit.” Lady says.
Amelia exhales through her teeth, “You don’t even know me. Why are you doing all this?”
“You’re my guest.” She says, as if it’s the color of the sky or the texture of grass.
“I’m not staying.”
“Okay.”
Amelia sits. The chair squeaks awkwardly as she does so it’s not entirely casual as she would have wanted. She feels stiff and unwelcome. Lady doesn’t stare at her. There’s nothing judgmental about her, although it could also be said there’s nothing there to begin with. The tea is smooth and mellow over her tongue. It’s not too sweet, but a hint of herbal spice to it that offers flavor. She can’t decipher what it is exactly. She’s never had tea like this.
She doesn’t comment on it.
Lady murmurs, “You can rest here, if you want.”
“I’d rather not.” Amelia drawls. “This place gives me the creeps.”
Lady tilts her head. Amelia snorts. She wishes she knew better company to talk to, or even had better experience in any kind of social capacity. It was an exhausting idea. She leans her cheek against her fist and stares flatly at Lady. Lady returns her gaze, utterly unswayed.
“Did it taste bad?” Lady asks.
“Horrible.” Amelia says dryly. “Don’t ever make me another cup again.”
Lady hums. She gathers the cups without any fanfare. Amelia crosses her arms, caging herself from anymore thoughts and emotions. Lady doesn’t leave dishes in the sink. She’s very tidy about cleaning the cups and then wiping the sink down. It’s something to note about her, despite being an emotionless tool, she has priorities.
The ding of the dryer down the hall feels like church bells.
“Finally.” Amelia mutters.
Tidiness must affect her. She changes in the bathroom, but she’s aware of every difference now. The gray stain on the tub from her cigarette. The blood in the sink. A fish towel dyed pink with her blood hanging up to dry. She pauses to take it all in. Underneath these imperfections is a home. The shower curtains are a generic blue, but at the top she’s noticing the hooks are in the shape of tentacles. The mirror has a wreath of feathers collected above it. Lost plumes, orange and gold and reds all combining together. Does Kiara shed when she showers? A funny thought. She peeks underneath the sink cabinet and finds it empty of all except a pink hairdryer.
There’s ghosts in this house. She doesn’t like it. She’s quick to put back on her clothes, wincing when she pulls at her wound with every movement. She bundles up her new clothes and lays them on the toilet seat. When she steps out, Lady is waiting. She has a black umbrella folded in her hands.
“For the weather.” She says.
“Don’t need it.”
Lady glances behind her and then back at her. She doesn’t seem to mind the rejection, lowering the umbrella at her side. She leads Amelia to the front door. It’s dry outside, the chatter of crickets and the glow of fireflies in the garden at complete contrast with the gloom she’s expecting from her own timeline. Lady puts the umbrella leaning against the doorframe.
“I’ll have tea ready next time.” Lady says.
“There won’t be a next time. I’m never coming back here.” Amelia touches her stomach, exhaling heavily. “Thanks for the pick me up, but I don’t need pity.”
“Okay.” Lady says, like each okay was a flowing river tide, nothing to be done and nothing to be said. Maybe she’s stupid or a lot more cunning than Amelia thinks. Either way, she makes a face.
“Yeah, bye.”
“Goodbye.”
The door closes, a sound quieter than the wind. Amelia hovers for a moment, her hands stuffed into her coat pockets and the stillness of the air encapsulating her. She imagines late nights where these fireflies had observers. A priestess out on the porch, painting the glow of the garden. A million stars and the hominess of enjoying it with the people you love.
She snarls and grabs her watch. She doesn’t spend another moment in that timeline. It’s almost a relief to be back where she belongs, on a bridge with rain pouring overhead. She pockets her watch with lava bubbling in her stomach.
I’m never going back. She vows. Ever.
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