SIXTEEN.
FORGIVEN

Bex had forgotten how London sounded.

It sounded stupid, but she had spent so long away from home she had forgotten how the city constantly hummed. The steady rumble of the metro was punctuated with the patter of rain and the sound of car alarms blaring and people shouting and everything moving constantly. It was a symphony she had erased from her mind.

She watched the familiar streets flash by the window of the train. Her feet were propped up against the blue plastic seat across from her, her head resting against the cold glass. Her headphones played music softly, but it wasn't enough to drown out the city.

It was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Harry's favorite piece.

If someone had told her she would be listening to classical music a year ago she would have laughed out loud. But Harry had played it constantly around the complex, and she had gotten used to the swell of the instruments echoing in her ears.

Had it really been a year and a half already?

It only felt like days ago that she had met Harry, beaten those thugs off in an alley, and been thrown into the unfamiliar world of a Kingsman. A world, she had to remind herself, that she was no longer part of. She had left. It was time to go home.

But it didn't feel like going home. London hadn't waited for her. Already, the march of demolition had replaced familiar shops with shiny shopping complexes. The streets had changed. Even the air felt different against her skin.

No, it didn't feel like going home. It felt like leaving home.

The train pulled into her stop and she lifted her head off the window to stand up. She filed off with the rest of the passengers. They slowly peeled away to go their respective ways, but Bex was left alone on the platform.

She had no idea what she was doing.

She had nowhere to go, no one to see. Did anyone even remember her? Bex couldn't even picture her old friends in her mind. All that she could she was Roxy, with her kind brown eyes, and Eggsy with his stupid grin. Her stomach turned, and she pushed them from her mind.

Bex started walking. She didn't know where she was going, but it was better than just standing there alone. She shoved her hands in her pockets, shivering as the freezing rain trickled down her face. She bowed her head down against the wind, watching the pavement disappear beneath her feet.

After a while, she looked up. With a jolt, she realized where she was. It was her old neighborhood.

Looking up, she saw the familiar street sign. Past that was the chain link fence she hopped over nearly every day, the crushed weeds, and the peeling paint on the door of her flat. Bex froze for a moment, a wave of memories burying her.

Biting her lip, she made a decision. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, she began to walk towards her flat. Bex stuck her foot in the rusty links of the fence and hauled herself over, leading neatly on the other side. There was a bend in the metal where she had stuck her foot every day for years. Even if no one else remembered her, the fence did.

Bex's hands curled into fists inside the pockets of her worn denim jacket as she mounted the steps to her flat. She passed the spot where she had found her mother unconscious night after night, the chip in the paint where Bex had knocked into it with her biology textbook when she was back at school, the initials carved into the soft wood.

B.A. Not R.A. She had made sure of that.

Too soon, the door of the apartment was looming in front of her. The tarnished copper numbers were hanging precariously from their screws and the paint was peeling worse than ever. The small pot of violets outside that Bex had so carefully tended to had withered into dry husks.

Her stomach roiling, Bex swallowed hard.

She knocked on the door.

There was no response. She tried again, but there was still no answer. Bex beat her fists against the door for a few more moments before giving up.

Taking a deep breath, she backed up and kicked in the door. It flew off its hinges and slammed against the wall inside, instantly releasing a cloud of dust into the air. She stepped inside cautiously.

The flat was crumbling apart. She looked around in disbelief at the state of disrepair it was in. Bex dragged her finger along the kitchen counter, watching it collect dust. Judging by the thin coat of dirt and dust coating everything, no one had lived here for a while.

She didn't notice the set of footprints leading from the door in the dust.

One of the windows was shattered, and Bex carefully stepped over the broken glass to the living room. The sofa was faded beyond recognition, the cigarette burns standing out against the pale color. Beyond that, she could see the hallway that split off into the two bedrooms.

Hers, and her mother's.

She went into her mother's first. Her mouth opened slightly when she saw it. The room was entirely empty. Everything was gone, leaving only the bare walls and stripped floors. It looked like a skeleton of a room, eerily lit by two windows that had been carefully taped over with cardboard.

Her eyebrows drawing together in confusion, Bex slowed backed out and closed the door. The door across the hall faced her, strangely free of grime or dust. Bex pressed her lips together and turned the handle, opening the door into her own room.

When Bex saw what was inside, her confusion only grew.

Everything was untouched, but immaculately clean. The light filtered softly through her curtains and cast a glow upon her belongings. Her blue comforter was still the same bright color, drawn tightly across her neatly made bed. Her textbooks had been carefully stacked on her shelves. Her picture frames were lined up along her dresser, free of dust.

Bex suddenly noticed the path in the dust, leading from the front door to her room. Someone had been coming in to clean it. It was preserved in pristine condition, as if she had never left, unlike the rest of the house.

Bex ran her fingertips along the tops of the picture frames. There was a new one, one she hadn't seen before, sitting in the middle of the pictures of her and her friends. It was a white frame, unlike her other black ones, with real glass. Inside, was a picture of her sitting atop her father's shoulders.

It was eerie. It almost felt like a shrine, as if she had died.

Suddenly, Bex remembered the mother she had left behind. The one who had no idea if she was alive or dead. Her chest rising and falling rapidly, she shut the door.

She backed away, a storm of emotions rising in her chest. Guilt, fear, sadness, anger, regret. They tangled inside her, fighting to get out.

Bex's back hit the wall and she jumped. She was at the end of the hall. A familiar seam in the wood was jutting into her spine. Her breaths came faster as she pulled away to look at it.

The storage space. The prison she had been trapped in countless times. Her worst fear.

Bex could barely trust herself to keep breathing as she bent down. She pulled open the door to reveal the tiny dark space swirling with dust. The blood roared in her ears.

No, she told herself. No, I refused to be scared anymore.

Her heart pounding, she pulled herself inside. Instantly, the walls pressed against her arms and back and she felt icy cold panic trickle down her neck. Gritting her teeth, she reached out and pulled the door shut. She sat in the darkness, listening to her wheezing breaths.

Bex's hands gripped each other painfully as she wrapped her arms around her knees. Sucking in air, she opened her eyes. It was pitch black, except for the tiny strip of light. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks.

"I'm not scared," she whispered. "I'm not scared of you."

Her entire body was trembling and her heart was beating so hard she thought it might crack her ribs, but everything went still inside her. Her thoughts suddenly slowed. Her fists unclenched slightly, and Bex could feel the blood under her nails from digging into her palms.

For one moment, everything around her went still too. The noises outside faded, the dust hung in midair, and she stopped breathing. And she was okay.

Then everything flooded back and Bex shoved the door open blindly. She tumbled outside, a gasp leaving her lips. She stayed on her hands and knees, her chest heaving. She scrambled to her feet, looking down at the tiny space.

A hysterical burble of laughter escaped her lips. Bex pressed her hands over her mouth and nose.

"I'm not scared," she said, letting out another short burst of disbelieving laughter.

Suddenly, there was a crash and Bex whirled around. Her heart was still pounding as she edged down the hallway against the wall. A year of training had taught her to move silently, and she approached the corner without a noise. She raised her fists in a defensive stance as she rounded the corner.

When she saw who it was, her fists dropped to her sides.

"Mum?"

Her mother was standing there, in the middle of the destruction, but it wasn't the mother she remembered. Her hair was freshly washed and pulled back away from her face. She had cut it short and it was back to her dirty blonde color instead of the bleached bottle color it had been when Bex had left. Her face looked years younger without her usual thick layer of makeup. She was wearing a gray t-shirt and sweatpants, but they were clean and free of rips. She looked like a softer version of herself, polished smooth around the edges.

Patricia had been carrying a plastic shopping back full of cleaning supplies, but it had dropped to the floor with a muffled thud. Before Bex knew what was happening, her mother let out a noise and flew towards her, instantly wrapping her up in her arms. Bex stood in shock as her mother squeezed her so tightly she could barely breathe and buried her face in her shoulder.

When she pulled away, Bex saw that there were tears in her blue eyes. Bex couldn't remember the last time she had seen her mother cry.

"You're alive," she breathed. "Oh my god, you're alive."

"Um, yeah," Bex said faintly.

"Oh, you came back. You came back," she sobbed. "Everyone said you were gone for good, but hoped. I-I kept your room clean in case you ever did."

Bex watched her wipe her eyes with her sleeve, still unmoving.

"Why?" she asked. "Since when do you care?"

"W-What do you mean? You're my daughter. I love you."

Bex took a step back. "No, you don't."

Patricia's eyes narrowed in confusion, hurt clearly displayed on her face.

"Of course I do. I spent every day you were gone wishing you would come back. A-And now you have!"

"I didn't come back for you, Mum."

"I don't understand. I did everything right this time. I-I left the apartment. I went to the clinic instead. I'm staying with a friend so they can keep an eye on me. I got a job. I stopped drinking."

"You stopped drinking?"

"Yes. I'm nine weeks sober, Bex."

Bex.

Her mother never called her Bex. And she had never said her name so softly, so carefully. Bex pressed her hands to her head, feeling suddenly like she was about to faint. Nothing made sense. It was as if she had come home to a parallel universe where nothing was as it had been.

"I don't understand," Bex said, her breaths coming quickly. "What's going on? What are you doing?"

Her mother moved closer.

"I'm being better."

She held up her hands.

"No," she said. "No, no, no. You're too late. You can't just come back and be better and suddenly love me again. Y-You ruined me."

"Bex, I'm so sorry-"

"No! None of this makes any sense. Why now? Why do you care now?"

"Because I lost you, Bex. I drove you away. And I realized I couldn't lose my whole family."

"You can't just come back. I already lost my whole family. Because of you!"

Patricia made a motion as if to put her hands on her shoulders, but Bex ducked out of her grasp.

Her heart was beating in two different directions, tearing her apart. She wanted her mother, but she couldn't forget everything she had been through.

She faced her mother.

"I promised myself I would never love you again. You changed me. You became a figment of my nightmares instead of my dreams."

"Bex," she breathed. "I know you can't love me. I don't even love me. I hate me and everything I became after your father died. You're in my nightmares every night too. Whenever I close my eyes I'm reminded of what I did to you, and it haunts me."

Bex pushed her back.

"No!" she cried, pointing a finger. "No, you're the one who hurt me. You don't get to feel sorry for yourself."

Her mother didn't try to touch her again. Her wide blue eyes, startling bright now that they weren't surrounded by smudged makeup and dark circles, bore into Bex's. She looked smaller and more vulnerable than Bex had ever seen.

"I know you can't love me, Bex. I'm not asking you to. I'm only asking you to forgive me."

Bex pressed her hands to her mouth, trying to quell the swirl of conflict building inside her. She looked at her mother again, silhouetted by the light coming through the door. She thought about the picture in her room. She watched the dust swirling in the air. She remembered the past nineteen years of her life and then she let her hands fall away from her mouth.

Patricia took a step towards her, and but this time Bex didn't back away.The two stood in the ruins of their old life, unmoving. Patricia smiled at her through her tears, and Bex breathed out.

Everything had changed.

"I don't love you," she whispered. "But I do forgive you."

─────

a quick note:

another angsty chapter heck yea. obviously bex and her mom aren't going to skip off into the sunset now, but now bex has closure and they can go their separate ways in peace. they're not going to have any kind of relationship after the shit that went down, but they've reached a resolution. this is their ending. i hope you all enjoyed reading it :)