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THEY CALLED HER FAMILY CURSED. Never to her face — nobody, she presumed, would be that cruel. Nobody, she supposed, would look a grieving woman in the eye at the funeral of her loved ones and say "Well, why are you surprised? Your family had been doomed from the beginning."
Still, she heard their whispers. Still, she heard their comments. She had never truly paid them much heed — when you came from a family such as hers, rumours and stories were practically currency, even amongst themselves. One story for a extra roast potato during Thanksgiving dinner. Two stories to be the one who picked the movie when they were a kid. Was it any wonder others picked up on their habits? Was it any wonder lives like theirs led to speculation?
She didn't know who started the curse rumour, but she could probably pinpoint to origin. Who wouldn't believe her family to be cursed, after all that had plagued them? Her mother had once had eight children — as of this moment, only two remained. Just her and her twin brother; the youngest, the survivors, all that was left of a dynasty that had once stood so tall the gods themselves would tremble beneath its shadow.
Victor was gone before he'd really had the chance to live. Edward, he'd been gone so long, she could barely remember the sound of his voice. It was unfair, that one — who murdered someone who was essentially a glorified archeologist. James, missing in action, as he had been for nearly thirty years. A lab explosion and a missing body, and her big brother was gone. Maggie and Danielle; two opposing sides of the same coin, different, and yet deeply, intrinsically connected — they'd gone together, when they'd gone. A fiery explosion and hail of gunfire and every bit of grandeur that those two women would have demanded to have christen their deaths. There was something bitterly poetic about it. Maggie; deadly and dangerous, a statue cut from marble and stained with blood; terrifying, and yet undeniably beautiful. A field agent, a specialist — the one you sent when you had no other options. The end times in human form. Dani; intelligent and ruthless, driven beyond all belief and unshakeable in her ambition. A liaison between countries; a woman who inhaled law and exhaled justice, who would shake the heavens themselves if it meant achieving her goals — she made the tough decisions with a smile, and never let anyone see the growing cracks in her stone heart. Perhaps God had found a twisted amusement in the pair dying together. At each other's throats from childhood, who would have believed they would die in each other's arms, their final words expressions of love and admiration, their final acts to try and save each other?
Angelina's death, meanwhile, had been stupid. Unfair. A car crash, of all things. A bloody car crash, killing a member of this family. Everyone else — it had been a battle. Her family always died in battle. Give them bitter glory or give them death. Her father — he'd died in battle, had he not? A mission she could never know the details surrounding, ending with him bleeding on foreign soil. Even Victor — his battle had been different, but it was a battle. They did not go gentle into that good night — they raged, they warred, they set that goddamn night in fire, and theydied in battle.
And Angelina chose to crash her bloody car.
That was just typical Angelina. She never could do things the normal way. She always had to be different — she'd been that way since she was a kid. She played with dolls while everyone else played with knives. She spoke only clear truths, while everyone else made games of deception and shrouded secrets. She made wishes and friendship bracelets and paper planes, while everyone else made enemies.
It was just Rowan left now, when it came to her siblings. Their family — once a staggering dynasty of peace and justice — had crumbled like sand. An Ozymandian ruin: Look upon my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
And nothing beside remained. What had once been a family with an influence that stretched across countries, an empire of its own creation, was nothing now. There was a time people presumed their name would go on forever. They were to be legends of their own time. History was written about people like them; about the things, silently, they had done, and the wars, quietly, they had won.
History would no longer speak their names, for there were scarcely anymore names to speak. Where there had once been dozens, now just her, her husband, two of her children, Rowan, and their mother still stood.
Nothing beside remains.
And now here she was: a woman that had spent her life trying to build her own legacy, succumbing to the same curse that had taken the lives of everyone before her. Wasn't that ironic? Unfair? She'd spent so long trying to be her own person, trying to be more than what the world told her she should be — and she'd ended up just the same.
She almost smiled. She'd ended up just the same. The same as everyone she'd ever loved, the same as everyone she'd ever admired. This was tradition, after all. Death in battle. Death through sacrifice. Mortem per honorem. Maybe she wasn't so different from her family after all. Wasn't that a comforting thought? Even in a time like this, she could still feel their strength and power within her.
She couldn't feel much else. The wound in her stomach still burned, but her limbs had grown cold. Her vision was beginning to blur now, beginning to fade, beginning to darken. What had she been thinking about? She knew she'd been thinking about something. There was something she was here to do.
Her husband's voice crackled through the air, from the phone laying cracked beside her head. "Steph! Tell me you're still with us!"
That made her smile. Of course she was still with him. When would she ever not be? There wasn't a power in the universe that could keep her from him — and many powers had tried. Their love had withstood everything the world had thrown at it, and it would withstand anything else it tried. Even this. Especially this.
"Con..." she breathed out.
How was she to know it would be her final breath? Had she known, would she still have used it to say his name?
(She hardly needed to think about that. The answer was yes. The answer was only ever going to be yes.)
She was glad he was here. Maybe not physically, but that hardly mattered. He was here. He was with her. She just wished he could be with her without it causing him all this oncoming pain. Her hand reached for the phone as though it was his face, as though, in holding it, she could hold him one last time.
They'd said, once, that when they retired, they'd buy a house together down by the coast. A quiet cottage, one with enough room for the kids to visit but not so much they decided to move back in. Not that they didn't love their kids, but they had lives of their own now. They had futures to build — and they had their futures to live.
A cottage by the coast. White wine beneath the summer sun. Tan lines and calloused fingers from the hours they'd spend upon their small boat. Evenings spent beside the fire pit, blankets wrapped around their shoulders and tea in their hands as they giggled like school children at jokes they'd heard thousands of times before.
It would have been a nice future, Stephanie thought, and then that was all she thought.
The phone slipped from her grip, and the Thompson curse, too soon, ripped away yet another life.
