Chapter Text
When she wakes up, she wonders about why her parents named her Rachel. Susan ended with an “N”, Ethan ended with an “N”. Rachel doesn't end with an “N”. Rachel understands just when her being so painfully different from everybody else really began.
Rachel is a supernova. She is a champagne supernova- she was ever since she was a little girl. Her mother let her listen to Oasis. Her mother was a spirited woman. Her father didn't know about it, or perhaps he did and just didn't say anything, but Rachel listened to that song in her room and basked it in like it was her anthem, and it stuck with her. Her mother would hum the song to her as she fell asleep.
Ethan Duncan may not have entirely approved of Rachel listening to the anarchist music of no-good druggie rockers, but her mother was something else. Rachel Duncan was a woman because of her mother, and she loves her for it.
Rachel still sees her mother dancing in the embers, and she looks for it. Rachel always wants to walk into the fire, but something always stops her. It's something in her that stops her.
The devil is here. The devil is here. The devil is here.
He tells her he saved her all those times, but she doesn't remember what times he means.
The moon still falls down for her every night, but it doesn't fall in a way it used to when she was a child. This is one thing Rachel Duncan can count on. Exploded stardust fills the air, her younger self in total awe of the space around her, the randomness of the universe utterly inspiring her.
The moon falls down for her every night, but now that she's older, the exploded stardust is replaced by dust particles, and where the randomness of the universe once inspired her, it now aggravates her. She cannot be in total awe of the space around her when its unpredictable variables suffocate her.
Tu me manques.
When the devil makes himself known to her again, she hears her mother's humming. She's in her room again, dancing and swaying her little head to the music- her hair was braided then.
Someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide.
She wakes up in her room, but the devil interrupts her mother's humming, and she wants to kill him. His stupid muffled voice is scratching its way into her consciousness again, and she wants to keep the distance from it, but she struggles against it.
“She's coming out of it, bring somebody in.” Pause. It was an apprehensive, pitiful, hesitation. “Hello? Miss Duncan?”
Rachel hates him so, she even contemplates not answering him. He talks as if he's having a conversation with her on the telephone. She hates him so very much.
“Miss Duncan, it is strongly advised to not exert yourself. There were some exciting things happening this time. We still have to process the results, but you may be quite intrigued when you see them yourself.”
Eyes do not flutter open. Rachel just blinks. She is awake. She doesn't stretch, she doesn't move or scratch at itches, she is stationary. One with the bed, she seeks to clutch onto that feeling of wholeness for as long as she can. She clutches onto the sacred formula for as long as she is able.
A champagne supernova in the sky.
She stares at the man, some petty excuse of a doctor, a more contemptuous joke of a human being. She wants to tell him everything. She wants to tell him how she saw her mother, how she remembers her voice and how she wordlessly sang to her, how she remembers that song- her lullaby and mantra. She wants to tell him how she is a supernova, wants to ask him about her name, she wants to tell him how much she hates him.
“What was that ruckus occurring on the lower floors?”
“I don't believe I know what you're referring to, ma'am.”
Rachel stares at him vilely. The devil must be so used to her by now. She should have been punished, she should have been reprimanded for her attitude, but there is always nothing. Somehow, she believes he even fears her.
“I am referring to that racket buzzing on your radios earlier. You seemed to have done me the discourtesy of keeping them at inappropriate volumes right before I go into the procedure. It was in fact, rather distracting.”
“Ma'am, it's standard protocol; I'm sure you understand.”
This man speaks to her with rhetoric tainting his voice, and Rachel would have been moderately impressed with it if his entire composure wasn't so tortuously feeble. Ma'am. She should have thrown her head back in laughter, cackling with the irony of his politeness. This man couldn't rally up to her worth his starch. She could destroy him for his subordinate mouth and he would merely take it. She wants someone who will thank her.
“Where is Paul?”
The man stutters, he fumbles on his sounds and articulates like they are actual words.
“Uh, ma'am, he's...”
Rachel's eyebrow arches with mild impatience, suggesting for him to continue, or else, with silent prodding: he's what?
The man continues, finally. “He's, uh... he doesn't work, he hasn't-”
“Give me a few minutes, doctor. I will be able to stand up and head to my office without assistance.”
“Miss Duncan, I think it would be wise-”
“A few minutes, if you would.”
Rachel stares at the man until he relents. It takes him only several seconds longer than the last doctor, but she only purses her lips and blinks to show her disapproval. He walks out of the room with one last nod to her as he leaves her to her devices.
It takes her several minutes to get up- she still wants to relish the feeling of being on the bed. Back is straight, no tension at all. She brings her feet to the side of the bed and finds her discarded high heels neatly stowed under the bed. She puts them on and sits on the bed momentarily before she has to head to her office again.
It's her pink room, the one she grew to like.
She approaches the mirror, the one she knows is not a mirror, and puts her face close to the glass as she places a nail to point at the glass. Rachel doesn't look at her reflection, she has something else to do. She looks for the space. Her nail is touching the reflection's nail, and the space is not there. It never was there.
She taught this by herself, read it in one of her books. She can detect two way mirrors this way, if the mirror is genuine, there should be space between her nail and the reflection. Rachel grew up looking for that space. Now, it's reflective of her ethic: she leaves no room for error.
She retracts her finger from the mirror- let them think this is some rare moment of vulnerability. It never is a rare moment of anything. Let them think what they want, they are only hurting themselves.
When she leaves the room, she doesn't look behind her, doesn't succumb to that idle habit of reassurance. She doesn't need to do it anymore. She walks with power, she taught this by herself, read it in one of her books too. Synchronicity, check. Eyes follow the nose, always centred. She's not a model, she doesn't want to be a meek and gentle girl- she is better than that.
Her mother is humming.
How many special people change? How many lives are living strange?
Keep the balance, check. Keep the synchronicity, back straight, neck is straight. Never tilted, do not disrupt the balance. Her eyes move with neck, neck moves with back, back controls the body. There is no centre. This is fluid motion.
One foot in front of the other, high heels only, check. One, step. Two, step. Three, step. Breathe, step. Four, step. Five, breathe. Six, do not falter. Stop with both feet. Do not shift weight, do not exchange faith between limbs, always be sure of what is moving what, do not change it, stick with a decision.
Rachel thinks the devil likes to use her because he wants to get drunk, she is a champagne supernova after all. Rachel thinks the she's not bubbly enough for that. Rachel thinks the devil exploited her in that room, she remembers it now.
Rachel thinks she can sense him watching her, she can feel him in the corners of the hallways. Do not ever look into them, do not acknowledge it. Head straight, eyes forward, back straight. There he is, tucked in one corner, hanging, above right. That is monitor 6a in that office.
Turn another way, hanging, above left, there he is again. That is monitor 2c in that office.
Get to the elevator. Right there in everyone's face if only one would look, there he is again. This time, smile. Do not look at him, do not acknowledge him. Smile. Dangerous and tightly. Too much lip, tone it down. Blink once, hold, open, only a few seconds. Invoke fear. Feline ferocity.
Rachel wants to do something new, she throws a curve ball. She isn't going to that office- her office they call it now, as if she needed any reminding. She goes to her room, her own room where the devil won't be there first.
Dark and black. This is the only time Rachel is happy to not see grey.
“Hello, father.” Inflection on the greeting, not at the end. Do not promote finality. Things have only just begun.
Silence.
“Hello, father.” No inflection on the greeting this time, trail off with the last word. Do not promote sentimentality, the noun means nothing. Induce instead the idea of anticipation.
Sit in that chair, execution chair. Rachel sits down, slowly, not too eagerly. Graceful. Like a falling angel, graceful, yet, never disgraced.
“My poor, poor Ethan. What have they done to you?” She speaks out to the space, finally calls the devil. She knows that an essential part of the exorcism is to call the devil by name. Everything under the sun has its name, and to claim it by calling it is how one can cast it away. This is just one of his many forms.
“Do you recall, Ethan, not the memory, but the feeling of how much I loved you?”
Past tense. Always a stab to the heart, take note. Feelings, memory. Memories, feeling. They're all interconnected. Rachel crosses her legs. Somewhere above her are words suspended in a space time continuum. She wants to make another chair, call it her throne, have these words engraved into the marble.
Ad perpetuam rei memoriam.
She's not thinking in French anymore, there is no time for that. She doesn't ask the devil to knock.
Tu me manques.
There's no time for that, there's no need for feelings, memory, and memories, feeling. French is disgusting. Latin is powerful, authoritative, empryeal in willpower. Nothing so crude and vulnerable as French.
Ad perpetuam rei memoriam, indeed. It is her father's eulogy, his epitaph, and her psalm. There is no time to dwell on sentimentality. “In perpetual memory”, for her dear father. Nothing at all like the conventional hallmark gravestones, as it should be.
Ethan is not worthy enough for Requiescat in pace. She can distinctly hear her father now, sobbing and stomping the floor. He's hitting things, throwing things around, he's tearing at his own hair. He doesn't need to knock.
“You can't leave me again,” he says.
When Rachel says nothing, he accentuates his disapproval. “No!”
Rachel allows herself to lean back on the chair. It's almost like she's watching her own tapes again. Blink, breathe, nothing unperturbed. This is almost far too easy. She wishes she had a martini ready for her, but she threw a curve ball today. The devil was unprepared.
Ad populum phaleras, ego te intus et in cute novi.
She knows how to work him, she knows his nuances. No one else can see her here, it's just her and the devil. She doesn't ask him to knock once. She doesn't need that to sense his presence. She speaks with finality. With untroubled cadence, she sings to her father.
“I'm afraid you don't deserve me anymore.”
She tries to hold her composure, but she cannot. Her lips stretch to make a tight line. She's laughing. A huff breaks from her lungs as she scoffs, chest heaving and shoulders shaking with glee. She lets her head fall back, her mouth still open from wild ecstasy. She looks around the room, remembering what it used to be to her.
Ethan Duncan died in this room.
Rachel Duncan used to die in this room.
The first time Rachel Duncan cried in this room, the tears came from her right eye. It made a single trail, trailing from her eye like a thread. She blinks again. She feels it. Rachel wants to kneel in front of the chair. Rachel wants to do her penance.
Ten Hail Mary prayers, five Our Father prayers. She decides not to encourage the devil, praying will seem weak. Rachel would skip seeing his ears bleed if it means not showing him inferiority. Her penance is anything but that- this is an exorcism.
When she stands up, slowly, gracefully yet again, she lingers. She allows herself to saunter around the room, knows the devil is watching wherever he is, but he can't touch her. She doesn't ask the devil to knock, she does it for him.
Each step she takes is a knock. She dances around the room, creates music for her own.
“Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It has been far too long since my last confession.” Rachel calls into the darkness, the room no longer illuminated by her home video tapes.
One knock, another knock, Rachel tilts her head. Unconventional composure, she won, she allows herself another perspective. Let him think she's being boisterous, let him think that she thinks she is entirely out of the clear. She knows she's not, but let him think so.
“My father, are you in heaven? Where are you now?”
One knock, another knock, knock, knock. She pets the material that was used as a screen for the projector.
“Thy kingdom will come crashing down, undone as it was in Cambridge.”
One knock, another knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. She turns her back on the screens.
“Give me this day, and the rest of your days, and I will forgive your trespasses.”
She thinks she can hear his voice, mocking her for one last time. He has that in common with Sarah Manning, he always wants to get the last word in. She won't let him have it this time.
“You don't believe in religion, Rachel.”
“What do you know about me, Father?”
“You're a Neolutionist, you are a child of Neolution. Act like it.”
Knock, knock, knock. Pause. Her father wasn't so demanding, he never openly was. He was demanding in his other ways, and Rachel's adolescent heart swells with love.
“I am neither a Prolethean nor a Neolutionist, Ethan.”
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“I am better.”
Life is changed, not taken away.
She continues making music, wanders around the room. She walks without a destination, but she always has a purpose.
Life is changed, not taken away.
She is far from barren, she is a success. She thinks to invite Sarah Manning to this room, where she may die with the rest of her demons. Maybe she will propose that the unruly street rat stab her other eye. Her left eye feels liberated.
Maybe the next time she comes into this room, she will want to cry but cannot. It is only then Rachel will not be barren by design.
She's finally made it to the door, already knows where the devil is hiding in the corner again, but she feels cleansed. She stares into the camera, pause.
Blink.
Tilt her head again- there is a lot of that today. She knocks on her side of the door, eyes still focused on the camera. She smiles. Sweet smile, like she was self-taught as a young girl.
Life is changed, not taken away.
She helps herself out of the room, hears Ethan Duncan's useless body convulsing on the floor. Frustrated, angry, alone. She doesn't care about it. She walks out on him.