enchanted
chapter 50, no grave can hold her body down.

•❃°•°❀°•°❃•

Rory hadn't been able to bring herself to see Michael in the hospital. She couldn't bear to see him knowing she didn't stay long enough to know whether he was still alive after the shooting.

"What if he hates me?" she panicked.

"He won't hate you, if anything he'll understand. You lost your dad-"

"We lost our dad," Rory cut her off.

Smiling softly the brunette carried on speaking, "I checked on him, I made sure he made it too the ambulance okay? He won't hate you."

•❃°•°❀°•°❃•

Eve walked in the room smiling at the boy in the hospital bed.

"Hi, Eve," Michael greeted with a smile. "Where's Rory?"

The girl in question was stood outside the hospital room taking deep breaths and pacing before she walked into the room with a tight lipped smile.

"I don't hate you, you were checking on your dad and I don't blame you for that," Michael said as she walked into the room.

This caught her off guard. "I promised my mum I'd look after you and I did," he told her. "And I'd take another bullet for you, both of you, because you're my family."

Eve laughed, "She thought you hated her."

"Shut up," Rory scolded before turning to Michael. "How are you doing?"

"Well I'm stuck in the hospital," he retorted.

Rory nodded awkwardly, "Right, yeah."

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"Well, I haven't spoken to Thomas, he came round to my house the other week and said my dad would be disappointed in me so I threatened to kill both him and Luca if it means I avenge my dad. Esme left so Lilian stepped up. Arthur watches me like a hawk and so does Ada and even Lizzie but I think that's Thomas' doing," she told him as he nodded along.

"Wait hang on, go back. You threatened to kill Tommy and Luca?" Michael asked confused.

The blonde nodded, "Yeah."

Evelyn looked to Michael after Rory had left to go the bathroom, "Told you she's changed."

"I didn't think she'd go round threatening to kill people, I knew she'd changed but I didn't think she'd changed that much," Michael told the brunette.

"Yeah well she has and she's not changing back any time soon or at all, she's fallen off the deep end and the only person that could bring her back was John and now he's gone and so is the only chance we have of getting her back," Evelyn informed him looking down. "She'll never forgive him."

"I know and I don't blame her," he agreed.

Rory came back into the room and the two brunette's stopped talking and the blonde started, "We have to get going before Arthur sends a fucking search party for us."

She walked up to Michael and kissed his cheek. "We'll come see you soon,," she told him and squeezed his shoulder. Eve did the same and they made their way back to the house. On their way out they saw Freya and Bonnie making their way to Michael's room but there was still an awkward tension between Rory and Freya since the older blonde found out Rory was using and snitched on her.

"What was that all about?" Eve asked, looking back at Freya and noticing the worried yet longing look towards Rory.

"Nothing," Rory brushed her off.

"What were you and Michael talking about?" Rory asked the girl walking next to her.

Eve turned her head to the blonde and said, "You."

"What about me?" she asked again.

Eve cleared her throat, "Uhm- just that you thought he was going to hate you and how stupid you were being."

"Right," she nodded.

"Do you reckon you'll ever forgive him? Tommy I mean," Eve asked.

Rory shook her head, "No, I liked to believe after he first died that I'd be able to and he'd at least try to redeem himself but instead he proved me wrong. He proved that his business and this stupid fucking vendetta will come first and I'm not his top priority anymore. He doesn't care about me anymore, he'll never change. Business will always come first."

What Rory said wasn't entirely true, Tommy did care about her but just didn't know how to show the teenager that he actually cared because every time he tried it came out wrong and she got mad which he couldn't blame her for. Speaking to Luca after Rory had left, Tommy's heart had skipped a few beats when he heard Luca tell him he held a gun to Rory's head. Tommy never meant for any of this to happen, if he had known that he would lose his wife, brother and niece all because of him he would have don't things differently but he can't change the past or his niece's feelings, either of them.

Eve remained on Rory's side but part of her pitied Tommy because she knew he never meant for this to happen but the bigger part of her knew Rory needed her.

The blonde was too deep in her thoughts to notice they were back home. Being in the old house still felt odd. She grew up in the house but it never felt like home and it especially doesn't feel like home now it's just her and Eve. The day her dad died haunts her, she still replays the whole thing in her head and still wonders if she had never gone out to paint that morning would she have been able to pull her dad back into the house? Would she have been able to save Michael? Would Esme have stayed. There all the questions that loop in her head 24/7 on a constant loop.

Seeing Luca twice broke her heart, knowing he wouldn't kill her because she wanted to die. She wanted her dad back and it wasn't possible to get him back because he was dead.

Tommy made the mistake of making Rory one of his enemies because now he was on constant edge of what she would do. He had stayed out of her way and done what both Ada and Arthur told him and gave her space so she could make sense of everything by herself and so she could come to terms with everything by herself.

John was her dad and no one could ever replace him. No matter how hard Arthur tried, she wasn't ready to let him go yet. She hoped in the future that Ada was right and that the pain would go away. She hoped that every time she heard a gun shot she wouldn't flinch or every time she saw a blonde peaky blinder went past she could stop pretending it was her dad and then getting disheartened when it wasn't him.

She also hoped that in her own time she'd be able to forgive Tommy but that was highly unlikely because at the end of the day her dad was dead because of him.

•❃°•°❀°•°❃•

Eve had gone to see Ada since she hadn't seen her properly in a while and she left Rory to her own devices which she didn't know was whiskey. But she had ran out so she had made her way to the Garrison where she knew Arthur always miscounted them. On her walk, she went a different way which was longer so she could think about her dad, her mum and Tommy.

Rory's thoughts about her family and Tommy were cut short when she saw a head of blonde hair kneeling over what looked like a body?

"Lottie." She heard Freya whisper and she swore she felt her heart break and her breath hitched in her throat as she walked faster towards her aunt. Rory knelt beside Freya, the familiar sting in her eyes as she held back tears at Freya's sobs. Rory didn't know what to say, she opened her mouth but nothing came out. They heard footsteps got closer to the to blonde's and they heard Finn gasp, Rory turned to look at Finn and Isaiah and shook her head.

Finn had pulled his twin up and into a hug whereas once Isaiah had gotten over the shock of seeing his best friend's lifeless body he eventually cradled Rory's head and pulled her into a hug about to lecture her about leaving the house without him but knew it was pointless.

Rory pulled herself from Isaiah's grip. "We need to get her out of here," Rory spoke, her voice void of any emotion which confused everyone. Lottie was as much Rory's sister as she was theirs.

"Why are you talking about her like that?" Freya snapped, her head whipping in Rory's direction. "Are you high again?"

"Frey," Isaiah called, his voice soft.

"No. Don't Frey me and don't stand there making excuses for her."

"I'm not I just don't think this is the time or place to do that because she's right we do need to get her out of here. We need to get you out of here too. It's not safe."

"She's dead and Freya's got us three whoever killed her isn't going to come back. Finn take her back to Pol's-"

"Stop talking about me as if I'm not here!" Freya shouted over Rory.

"Take her back to Pol's, Isaiah got find some blinders to move Lottie's body and I'll stay here with her," Rory ordered, ignoring Freya's shouts. When nobody moved she huffed. "Now."

"You sound just like him," Freya muttered as she passed her. "You sound just like he did at your dad's funeral."

"Shut up Freya and go home," she rolled her eyes.

Once the three of them had gone, it left Rory with Lottie. She sat beside the girl, taking her hand into her's and closed Lottie's eyes. Her eye's still being open freaked her out. "You didn't deserve any of this, Lots," Rory sighed, rubbing her thumb on the girl's hand.

"What are we supposed to do without you?" she asked. "You're the glue that hold us together, you're the one who keeps Freya sane."

Finn had come back to help Isaiah and sent Rory to Pol's.

•❃°•°❀°•°❃•

Finn had fallen asleep holding Freya's hand while Bonnie had fallen asleep laid next to her, his hand resting on her head where he had been stroking her head which was resting on his chest. Isaiah had come to check on the girl to see the three of them asleep so he covered the girl and Bonnie up with her blanket and got Finn the one that Polly had passed him downstairs before she came in with the bedding from Ada's old room for him and Rory to sleep on. None of the them daring to leave her alone.

Rory wished she had have reacted differently but she couldn't take it back now. What was done was done and she just wished that Freya would forgive her. Lottie was her best friend too and she would miss her a lot.

"Was she right?" Isaiah asked.

"What?"

"Were you high again?"

"No," she shook her head.

"Don't lie to me, Ro."

"I'm not lying I was sober. I still am! I was going to get whiskey because we're out and then I saw Freya and I forgot."

Isaiah wanted to believe her but the way she had been acting the past few weeks, he couldn't not fully.

"You don't believe me do you?" she sat up, scoffing.

"Can you really blame me?"

"Yes. Why can't you just trust me?"

"Because I don't. I don't trust that you won't turn back to the bottle or drugs because you can't be trusted around them," he told her, his voice firm.

"Unbelievable," she shook her head, lying down and facing the other way.

"I know you are."

"Fuck off," she huffed.

"You're an addict Aurora and I refuse to sit by and let drugs and alcohol ruin you."

"Are you making me pick?"

"Yes I am because I don't want to waste my life begging you to get clean when you clearly don't want to. So which is it? Me or drugs?"

"I'm not doing this. Not now."

"Then I guess that's my answer. If you can't pick then it's not me is it?"

"I guess not," she shrugged.

"Then we're done?" he asked her, looking in her eyes for any sign of anything but he got nothing.

"Yep. We're done," she confirmed. "You don't trust me, I can't be trusted so we're over."

"You're actually picking drugs over me. Over us after everything we've been through you're going to throw that away so you can kill yourself without anyone stopping you?"

"I want this to stop, Isaiah," she snapped. "I want the visions, the nightmares, the everything to stop and unfortunately drugs is the only way it stops-"

"It'll be your funeral they all go to next," he cut her off. "If you want to kill yourself go ahead I'm not stopping you anymore because you're a big girl and you make your own decisions but when you eventually kill yourself I won't be there to bury you, Ro."

Isaiah's words cut through the room like a knife but she still didn't give him anything in return not a look, not a sigh, not a comeback. Nothing. Because she got what she wanted. She got free will to use all she wanted and no one could stop her.