Chapter Twenty-Six
Higher Council
Higher Council
Mammy made a little nose from where she sat in the chair next to Melly as Melly's eyes fluttered open. Mammy pulled the wet washrag with which she had been dabbing Melanie's forehead with and smiled at her child.
Melanie sat up, grasping her head as she did so. Reid watched her timidly glance around, until she saw Phillip, who was staring out the window into the darkness of Ardely's yard. She approached him, her hands on his shoulders. He turned, brows furrowed. He was sober and upset and ashamed. Mostly, though, afraid of what Melanie would say. She slid her arms around his neck, and finally, smiled timidly. She leaned up to kiss him on the lips, and he kissed her fervently back, his arms around her waist.
"I love you so much..." she whispered.
"Thank you..."
Melanie pulled away, and smiled. She tripped as she stepped away, holding her head with her hand, using the other to steady herself against the wall.
"I'm dreadful tired Mammy. Tonight has just been so...hectic. Could you help me to bed?"
"I'll do it," Reid said, hopping up. Mammy stepped between Melanie and Reid.
"No you isn't. I gotta help Miss Melly undress and get ready for bed. You can come in after she's...decent." Mammy grumbled as she lead Melanie up the stairs about how in her time, men were never to be in a woman's room alone. Melanie smiled weakly, her head in her hands.
***
"Hey," Reid said, shutting the door behind him.
"Hey," Melanie replied.
"Phillip is sleeping in the hall, by the way. Watching the door. Mammy said she's rather have me in the room than Phillip."
"Because I can take you in a fight," Melanie said.
"Cannot," Reid grumbled, cheeks turning pink in the dark. He leaned over and sat on the corner of Melanie's bed. He moved to put his hands into her hair and it fell down her back. He leaned forward as he touched it. Melanie giggled lightly.
"You like my hair..." she whispered.
"I do," he said sheepishly, running his hands over the gold again.
"I love you,"Melanie blurted out. Spencer stared. He couldn't see her face in the dark. "You're my best friend," she whispered. "You really are. Just...thank you...so much...for everything." Spencer could hear her start to cry.
"Melly..." he whispered, not moving from his spot, unsure what to do. Melanie leaned and collapsed on him, her sobs ringing out. "I'm so frightened!"
"Shhhh...you're going to wake the whole house. You want Phillip to hear you like that?" Melanie pushed her head into Spencer's neck, muffling her voice. Her nose was cold on his skin and her red lips were wet on his neck as they accidentally brushed the skin.
"I'm sorry..." she mumbled.
"Why are you apologizing?"
"I'm so frightened. I can't protect anyone like this. I'm worthless. I'm a mess. What can I do for anyone? Nothing. I can't rest. If I..." her voice trailed off.
"Yes?" Reid asked, hesitating.
"I just need to talk to someone."
"Who?"
"A good man. Tomorrow. Go to sleep, Reid. If anything happens, I know you'll wake up and protect me. I won't go without a fight."
He smiled at Melly in the blackness. A hand caught his wrist as he sat up, and he felt Melly's cold lips touch to his palm. A pleasant shiver wracked his body as he slipped his hand from her's. He took her small couch where Melanie herself would've had her legs dangling over the side. Melanie smiled when Spencer's breathing slowed and got louder. He was finally asleep. He didn't notice Melanie rise from the bed and dress in a black sparring gown, just as Phillip stayed snoring in the hall as his fiance strode past.
Phillip did, however, here a horse cry out in the yard minutes after Melanie left. His body adjusted for a moment, his eyes wide and disoriented, but he ran to Melanie's window because the door was ajar. Reid woke with the tromping of Phillip's boots. Phillip stared out the glass. Reid joined him in time to see streaks of Melanie's gold hair flying out from under her black bonnet as she rode off on her snow white horse going at least 40-something miles per hour. Reid stared. Phillip, ran, waking the house with the clank of his boots. Reid pulled his sweatshirt over his grey tee he had worn to bed as he knocked on the door's of his team mates. JJ and Emily exited their room together first, both rubbing their eyes. Morgan opened his door wide and Hotch and Rossi broke out of their rooms.
"Melanie's gone," Reid said. Reid heard a glass crack behind him. He turned to see Charlie, drunk and unshaven, drop his alcohol.
"Damien?" he asked, voice trembling.
Reid shook his head. "On her own. Her horse."
"I'll shoot it when she gets back. I might just shoot her too..." he hissed, stopping down the stairs. Mammy was out of her room then, trying to hold back Charles.
"Stay, Charlie. You're drunk." Morgan said.
"I have to get my sister!" he said. He could hear Phillip screaming from the yard. He was on his dapper horse he had put in the stable from his last ride over here.
"You'll only get in the way. Stay, for Melanie." Charlie continued fighting his way to the door.
"Charlie! We'll get her...I promise." Reid said.
"Liar!"
"...You can kill me if I'm wrong."
Charlie looked back. "You swear?"
"Reid!" Hotch said.
"I promise," Reid said, without looking at his team mates.
"Where does Melanie go to think?" Reid asked as the other team members (minus Hotch and Rossi) were loading into the SUVs.
"I don' know, Docta Reid. Miss Melly's a wanderer. Eva since she was a lil' thang. She was always goin', never stoppin'."
"Any ide-"
"The cemetery." Charlie's voice was hard. He didn't look at Reid, just took another sip of his brandy.
"The cemetery. Father's grave. I'd find her there some times, after she came to terms. There's an angel by his grave, and he's got a crook in his arm. Melanie used to fall asleep there. She trusted it. She told me once it spoke to her...I never dreamed..."
Reid stalked into the car then, and it drove away, leaving Charlie to stare and wonder if he should've trusted that boy to bring home his sister. He immediately regretted trusting someone else with his duty.
***
The BAU beat Phillip to the grave yard, only to see Melanie slowly walking and speaking to herself. The team decided to keep quiet, and keep watch around the perimeter's of the yard.
"The little song bird thought of everything and nothing. Her father promised to send her the angel of music," Melanie's hand raised from the dead roses in her hand to her wet eyes, wiping them dry. "Her father promised her..." Melanie didn't see the others as she walked, her black dress dragging behind her, the low cut lace showing too much of her breasts. She didn't care. She clutched an odd amount of dead red roses tied with a black ribbon. Her breath danced as fog in the late autumn and it swirled around the roses, who were begging to join. Melanie tossed back the lace bonnet, letting her tied back blonde hair fall around her face, hiding it like she had after her father died, protecting her.
"Father..." she whispered, her voice cracking. "You were everything...you were all that ever mattered. You more than a father, you were a best friend. Then you left. You left me...what was I supposed to do when you shattered my world? Sometimes...if I ever dreamed...some how, you would be here. I wish I could hear your voice again...knowing that I never will. But dreaming of you gave me strength, and every thing I did was for you.
Now, what I am doing? Walking a cemetery to get to you. Passing tombstones and sculpted angels...this isnt' where you should be, Abba. You were warm and gentle...." Melanie's tears fell harder and faster now. Her voice cracked as she screamed.
"Too many years fighting back tears, why can't the past just die? Abba, try to forgive! Teach me to live! Give me the strength to try! Cast away the memories, the thoughts, the silent tears! No more gazing across the wasted years!" Melanie slumped in front of a mausoleum. White marble next to her pale skin in the moon, she blended with the exception of her black dress. Her gold hair was leached a white-yellow in the night light.
"Help me say goodbye..." she whispered.
The white angel stared down at her, his hands outstretched. Melanie wrapped her little pale hands onto the wings, and started sobbing again as she tried to rise.
Phillip's dapper horse flew up the drive, filing past Melanie's snow white horse which had been left at the gate.
"Melly?!" Phillip said, jumping off his hoarse, and coming down to Melanie. She looked up, shocked, her blue eyes laced with red. Phillip came and she buried herself into him. She sobbed harder to him as he looked up at the marble mausoleum. He shuddered, and turned back to his fiance.
"It's okay, Melly..." he whispered kissing her hair. She roughly gripped his head and kissed all over his face and he meshed their lips together passionately. She continued sobbing, pulling at her hair after they fell apart.
"Are you ready to come home?" he asked. Melanie shook her head.
"You're going to freeze," she told him, whipping off her cloak and stringing it around his shoulders.
He chuckled darkly. "And you barefoot and and a sleeveless dress are warm without this?" he said, trying to give it back to her. She pushed it away.
"I don't need it," she said, smiling through her pain. Reid was gritting his teeth not even 10 feet from them. She was being brave for him, when she had come here to be vulnerable and open with her father. He was ruining this. Reid wanted to run and yell at Phillip, just as he wanted to save Melanie from Charlie back when they'd first arrived. Again, he didn't act, and he felt sick to his stomach. But he remembered Melanie asking him that one day:
"I don't have to act around you, do I, Reid?"
He had been shocked at first. But Spencer knew right now, how she could cry shamelessly next to him. He didn't understand how he had become her safe house, but he had.
"Let's get you home," Phillip tried again. Melly shook her head once more. She looked at the gates of the monument.
"Do you think they would get upset if I went in?" she said. Phillip held her arm as she rose to try to pry open the gates. Reid wondered how many times the teenage Melanie had sat there, screaming and crying trying to throw open the gates to her father's dead body. He shuddered.
"Don't, Melly, they're closed for a reason."
"I know..." she whispered. "...It was closed-casket funeral. I don't even know what he was wearing. I don't even know if it's him in the box. If seeing is believing, how did they ever expect me to come to terms?" she whispered, gazing longingly through the bars. She could vaguely see the outline of a maroon casket with her code of arms on the top. She sighed.
"I want to be right there," she pointed inside. "Right next to him."
Phillip sighed. "Not in France with Gustave and I?...And our other children?" Reid swore he saw Melanie flinch. She hung her head.
"That's not something to think about now, is it?" she asked.
"No...it's not. We'll worry about that later. Melanie..." he whispered, but Spencer could hear, and he knew Emily could hear on the other side. Hotch and Rossi were by the gate and JJ and Morgan were in the back entrance.
"How...how soon do you want to try to have a baby?"
Melanie looked up at him and stared.
"What do you mean?"
Phillip didn't say anything.
"You...out-outside of a wedlock?"
Again, he didn't say a word.
Melanie rose. "How dare you!" she hissed. "I came here...you said that in front of my father? How dare you! This is exactly why I knew I shouldn't let you kiss me yet! I..." Melanie didn't speak, but ran away. She left the roses on the steps, and ran. Phillip chased after her, but Emily found him.
"Vicomte!" she said, grabbing his arm.
"Let me-"
"No."
He stopped flailing after a moment, and he stared after Melanie as it slowly began to rain. Spencer couldn't hold his tongue anymore.
"Melly!" he screamed, but she was on her horse and moving.
"Melly! Melly!"
***
Melanie came in after the BAU, and before Phillip. She hopped off the horse, and came eye to eye with Charlie. And his navel pistol.
"If you shoot Theophilia I'll scream!" she cried. It was dripping in the barn, and Melanie was soaked to the bone.
"I'll kill that horse!" he slurred. Melanie slowly reached out for the gun, and tossed it once it was in her hands.
"Don't, Charlie...don't." Her hands were on the sides of his face, and she kissed him lightly. His eyebrows knitted together. It had been too long since Charlie excepted any kind of love from Melly-drunk or not. She held him for a moment, perhaps too long.
"Don't do this..." she whispered. She pulled back and saw his thinking face. She looked, eyes wide.
"What are you looking at?" he groaned. Her finger ran between his eyes, separating his brows.
"You look so like Father..." she whispered.
Melanie stepped away, and got back on her white horse, and burst out of the barn back into the rain. Charlie, in his white silk pajamas, flew onto his black horse. Reid watched as Charlie circled in front of Melanie. The two horses, white on black. Their clothing black on white. Their skin, pale on sun-kissed. Their hair, gold on gold.
"Come inside," he whispered. Melanie looked down, but slowly rose her head again. She took off past her brother, flying past the rain and trees. She screamed, just to do it. Just to let out some of the pain that weighed on her. She turned around, flying in front of Ardely, arms out wide, going as fast as she could. Everything was blurring around her, and she became blind to the outside world.
***
Charlie helped Melanie slop through the mud to the steps of Ardely around 3 a.m. that night. The hem of her black dress was ruined- hell, it was ruined up to the knees. She was soaked and shaking and would become unconscious soon. Charlie kissed her forehead gingerly and her head flopped on his shoulder. He reached for the handle, but it was pulled open. Charlie gasped.
Melly's eyes opened to slits, and she could she the familiar, falsely warm face in front of her. Grey-haired and wrinkled slightly.
"Mayor Barly?" she asked, before her bony legs gave out.
***
"I just...why would you do such a thing?! Did you know how worried we were? Half the police force is out looking for you! What were you doing, Melanie?!" Her mother, blonde hair pulled back into a crisp bun and a emerald night frock and matching robe on her body stared down at Melanie, wet and cold, shivering and weak. Melanie looked sick, almost, her black shawl wrapped about her.
"I went to Father's grave," she whispered, eyes never leaving the ground.
"...Never again." Melanie's eyes shot up.
"You can't-" but as she rose to fast, her head spun and she started to cough rapidly, grasping at her throat as she fell back down. She calmed in a few minutes.
"Dresella, darling," the mayor came behind her and massaged her shoulders. "You can't do that. It means so much to dear Melly."
Melanie stared evilly at the pair. "How familiar," she gasped, unable to keep the shock and anger out of her voice.
"I do suppose it's out of the bag," Mayor Barly cried, throwing up his hands.
"Children, John and I...well, we've been courting for a few months now-"
"And you were planing to tell us when?" Melanie asked.
"Don't interrupt, Melanie and you'll get the full story," said John Barly with a smile and wag of his finger. Melanie stared. Did she...did she see an orange tinge to his hair. Melanie locked eyes with her mother again, and the two stared down each other evilly. It was true, Dresella was beautiful, and Melanie would look just like her at 40, but Dresella possessed a mean air Melanie could never reflect if she tried, and she was.
"Here dear," said the Major coming for Melly,"your shawl is soaked. Let me-"
"No," Melanie tightened her grip on it. "I'm sorry I interrupted," she sneered, rising ungracefully and with difficulty.
"Melanie, you can't be insinuating that I was with your mother tonight?"
"You got here uncommonly fast," she said, without turning back.
"Melanie Rene-" her mother began, but John was faster.
"You're mother called me once she realized you were gone."
"And when was that? 20 minutes ago?" the look on John's face told her it hadn't been when she went missing. Melanie cringed.
"It's late. I'm going to turn in. Why don't you go spend some time with Angus, Mayor? He's still young and impressionable," she sneered. She wiped away tears as she ascended the stairs thinking to herself,"You might even convince him your his father."
Melanie deep down knew it was very probable he might be.
Melanie sat up, grasping her head as she did so. Reid watched her timidly glance around, until she saw Phillip, who was staring out the window into the darkness of Ardely's yard. She approached him, her hands on his shoulders. He turned, brows furrowed. He was sober and upset and ashamed. Mostly, though, afraid of what Melanie would say. She slid her arms around his neck, and finally, smiled timidly. She leaned up to kiss him on the lips, and he kissed her fervently back, his arms around her waist.
"I love you so much..." she whispered.
"Thank you..."
Melanie pulled away, and smiled. She tripped as she stepped away, holding her head with her hand, using the other to steady herself against the wall.
"I'm dreadful tired Mammy. Tonight has just been so...hectic. Could you help me to bed?"
"I'll do it," Reid said, hopping up. Mammy stepped between Melanie and Reid.
"No you isn't. I gotta help Miss Melly undress and get ready for bed. You can come in after she's...decent." Mammy grumbled as she lead Melanie up the stairs about how in her time, men were never to be in a woman's room alone. Melanie smiled weakly, her head in her hands.
***
"Hey," Reid said, shutting the door behind him.
"Hey," Melanie replied.
"Phillip is sleeping in the hall, by the way. Watching the door. Mammy said she's rather have me in the room than Phillip."
"Because I can take you in a fight," Melanie said.
"Cannot," Reid grumbled, cheeks turning pink in the dark. He leaned over and sat on the corner of Melanie's bed. He moved to put his hands into her hair and it fell down her back. He leaned forward as he touched it. Melanie giggled lightly.
"You like my hair..." she whispered.
"I do," he said sheepishly, running his hands over the gold again.
"I love you,"Melanie blurted out. Spencer stared. He couldn't see her face in the dark. "You're my best friend," she whispered. "You really are. Just...thank you...so much...for everything." Spencer could hear her start to cry.
"Melly..." he whispered, not moving from his spot, unsure what to do. Melanie leaned and collapsed on him, her sobs ringing out. "I'm so frightened!"
"Shhhh...you're going to wake the whole house. You want Phillip to hear you like that?" Melanie pushed her head into Spencer's neck, muffling her voice. Her nose was cold on his skin and her red lips were wet on his neck as they accidentally brushed the skin.
"I'm sorry..." she mumbled.
"Why are you apologizing?"
"I'm so frightened. I can't protect anyone like this. I'm worthless. I'm a mess. What can I do for anyone? Nothing. I can't rest. If I..." her voice trailed off.
"Yes?" Reid asked, hesitating.
"I just need to talk to someone."
"Who?"
"A good man. Tomorrow. Go to sleep, Reid. If anything happens, I know you'll wake up and protect me. I won't go without a fight."
He smiled at Melly in the blackness. A hand caught his wrist as he sat up, and he felt Melly's cold lips touch to his palm. A pleasant shiver wracked his body as he slipped his hand from her's. He took her small couch where Melanie herself would've had her legs dangling over the side. Melanie smiled when Spencer's breathing slowed and got louder. He was finally asleep. He didn't notice Melanie rise from the bed and dress in a black sparring gown, just as Phillip stayed snoring in the hall as his fiance strode past.
Phillip did, however, here a horse cry out in the yard minutes after Melanie left. His body adjusted for a moment, his eyes wide and disoriented, but he ran to Melanie's window because the door was ajar. Reid woke with the tromping of Phillip's boots. Phillip stared out the glass. Reid joined him in time to see streaks of Melanie's gold hair flying out from under her black bonnet as she rode off on her snow white horse going at least 40-something miles per hour. Reid stared. Phillip, ran, waking the house with the clank of his boots. Reid pulled his sweatshirt over his grey tee he had worn to bed as he knocked on the door's of his team mates. JJ and Emily exited their room together first, both rubbing their eyes. Morgan opened his door wide and Hotch and Rossi broke out of their rooms.
"Melanie's gone," Reid said. Reid heard a glass crack behind him. He turned to see Charlie, drunk and unshaven, drop his alcohol.
"Damien?" he asked, voice trembling.
Reid shook his head. "On her own. Her horse."
"I'll shoot it when she gets back. I might just shoot her too..." he hissed, stopping down the stairs. Mammy was out of her room then, trying to hold back Charles.
"Stay, Charlie. You're drunk." Morgan said.
"I have to get my sister!" he said. He could hear Phillip screaming from the yard. He was on his dapper horse he had put in the stable from his last ride over here.
"You'll only get in the way. Stay, for Melanie." Charlie continued fighting his way to the door.
"Charlie! We'll get her...I promise." Reid said.
"Liar!"
"...You can kill me if I'm wrong."
Charlie looked back. "You swear?"
"Reid!" Hotch said.
"I promise," Reid said, without looking at his team mates.
"Where does Melanie go to think?" Reid asked as the other team members (minus Hotch and Rossi) were loading into the SUVs.
"I don' know, Docta Reid. Miss Melly's a wanderer. Eva since she was a lil' thang. She was always goin', never stoppin'."
"Any ide-"
"The cemetery." Charlie's voice was hard. He didn't look at Reid, just took another sip of his brandy.
"The cemetery. Father's grave. I'd find her there some times, after she came to terms. There's an angel by his grave, and he's got a crook in his arm. Melanie used to fall asleep there. She trusted it. She told me once it spoke to her...I never dreamed..."
Reid stalked into the car then, and it drove away, leaving Charlie to stare and wonder if he should've trusted that boy to bring home his sister. He immediately regretted trusting someone else with his duty.
***
The BAU beat Phillip to the grave yard, only to see Melanie slowly walking and speaking to herself. The team decided to keep quiet, and keep watch around the perimeter's of the yard.
"The little song bird thought of everything and nothing. Her father promised to send her the angel of music," Melanie's hand raised from the dead roses in her hand to her wet eyes, wiping them dry. "Her father promised her..." Melanie didn't see the others as she walked, her black dress dragging behind her, the low cut lace showing too much of her breasts. She didn't care. She clutched an odd amount of dead red roses tied with a black ribbon. Her breath danced as fog in the late autumn and it swirled around the roses, who were begging to join. Melanie tossed back the lace bonnet, letting her tied back blonde hair fall around her face, hiding it like she had after her father died, protecting her.
"Father..." she whispered, her voice cracking. "You were everything...you were all that ever mattered. You more than a father, you were a best friend. Then you left. You left me...what was I supposed to do when you shattered my world? Sometimes...if I ever dreamed...some how, you would be here. I wish I could hear your voice again...knowing that I never will. But dreaming of you gave me strength, and every thing I did was for you.
Now, what I am doing? Walking a cemetery to get to you. Passing tombstones and sculpted angels...this isnt' where you should be, Abba. You were warm and gentle...." Melanie's tears fell harder and faster now. Her voice cracked as she screamed.
"Too many years fighting back tears, why can't the past just die? Abba, try to forgive! Teach me to live! Give me the strength to try! Cast away the memories, the thoughts, the silent tears! No more gazing across the wasted years!" Melanie slumped in front of a mausoleum. White marble next to her pale skin in the moon, she blended with the exception of her black dress. Her gold hair was leached a white-yellow in the night light.
"Help me say goodbye..." she whispered.
The white angel stared down at her, his hands outstretched. Melanie wrapped her little pale hands onto the wings, and started sobbing again as she tried to rise.
Phillip's dapper horse flew up the drive, filing past Melanie's snow white horse which had been left at the gate.
"Melly?!" Phillip said, jumping off his hoarse, and coming down to Melanie. She looked up, shocked, her blue eyes laced with red. Phillip came and she buried herself into him. She sobbed harder to him as he looked up at the marble mausoleum. He shuddered, and turned back to his fiance.
"It's okay, Melly..." he whispered kissing her hair. She roughly gripped his head and kissed all over his face and he meshed their lips together passionately. She continued sobbing, pulling at her hair after they fell apart.
"Are you ready to come home?" he asked. Melanie shook her head.
"You're going to freeze," she told him, whipping off her cloak and stringing it around his shoulders.
He chuckled darkly. "And you barefoot and and a sleeveless dress are warm without this?" he said, trying to give it back to her. She pushed it away.
"I don't need it," she said, smiling through her pain. Reid was gritting his teeth not even 10 feet from them. She was being brave for him, when she had come here to be vulnerable and open with her father. He was ruining this. Reid wanted to run and yell at Phillip, just as he wanted to save Melanie from Charlie back when they'd first arrived. Again, he didn't act, and he felt sick to his stomach. But he remembered Melanie asking him that one day:
"I don't have to act around you, do I, Reid?"
He had been shocked at first. But Spencer knew right now, how she could cry shamelessly next to him. He didn't understand how he had become her safe house, but he had.
"Let's get you home," Phillip tried again. Melly shook her head once more. She looked at the gates of the monument.
"Do you think they would get upset if I went in?" she said. Phillip held her arm as she rose to try to pry open the gates. Reid wondered how many times the teenage Melanie had sat there, screaming and crying trying to throw open the gates to her father's dead body. He shuddered.
"Don't, Melly, they're closed for a reason."
"I know..." she whispered. "...It was closed-casket funeral. I don't even know what he was wearing. I don't even know if it's him in the box. If seeing is believing, how did they ever expect me to come to terms?" she whispered, gazing longingly through the bars. She could vaguely see the outline of a maroon casket with her code of arms on the top. She sighed.
"I want to be right there," she pointed inside. "Right next to him."
Phillip sighed. "Not in France with Gustave and I?...And our other children?" Reid swore he saw Melanie flinch. She hung her head.
"That's not something to think about now, is it?" she asked.
"No...it's not. We'll worry about that later. Melanie..." he whispered, but Spencer could hear, and he knew Emily could hear on the other side. Hotch and Rossi were by the gate and JJ and Morgan were in the back entrance.
"How...how soon do you want to try to have a baby?"
Melanie looked up at him and stared.
"What do you mean?"
Phillip didn't say anything.
"You...out-outside of a wedlock?"
Again, he didn't say a word.
Melanie rose. "How dare you!" she hissed. "I came here...you said that in front of my father? How dare you! This is exactly why I knew I shouldn't let you kiss me yet! I..." Melanie didn't speak, but ran away. She left the roses on the steps, and ran. Phillip chased after her, but Emily found him.
"Vicomte!" she said, grabbing his arm.
"Let me-"
"No."
He stopped flailing after a moment, and he stared after Melanie as it slowly began to rain. Spencer couldn't hold his tongue anymore.
"Melly!" he screamed, but she was on her horse and moving.
"Melly! Melly!"
***
Melanie came in after the BAU, and before Phillip. She hopped off the horse, and came eye to eye with Charlie. And his navel pistol.
"If you shoot Theophilia I'll scream!" she cried. It was dripping in the barn, and Melanie was soaked to the bone.
"I'll kill that horse!" he slurred. Melanie slowly reached out for the gun, and tossed it once it was in her hands.
"Don't, Charlie...don't." Her hands were on the sides of his face, and she kissed him lightly. His eyebrows knitted together. It had been too long since Charlie excepted any kind of love from Melly-drunk or not. She held him for a moment, perhaps too long.
"Don't do this..." she whispered. She pulled back and saw his thinking face. She looked, eyes wide.
"What are you looking at?" he groaned. Her finger ran between his eyes, separating his brows.
"You look so like Father..." she whispered.
Melanie stepped away, and got back on her white horse, and burst out of the barn back into the rain. Charlie, in his white silk pajamas, flew onto his black horse. Reid watched as Charlie circled in front of Melanie. The two horses, white on black. Their clothing black on white. Their skin, pale on sun-kissed. Their hair, gold on gold.
"Come inside," he whispered. Melanie looked down, but slowly rose her head again. She took off past her brother, flying past the rain and trees. She screamed, just to do it. Just to let out some of the pain that weighed on her. She turned around, flying in front of Ardely, arms out wide, going as fast as she could. Everything was blurring around her, and she became blind to the outside world.
***
Charlie helped Melanie slop through the mud to the steps of Ardely around 3 a.m. that night. The hem of her black dress was ruined- hell, it was ruined up to the knees. She was soaked and shaking and would become unconscious soon. Charlie kissed her forehead gingerly and her head flopped on his shoulder. He reached for the handle, but it was pulled open. Charlie gasped.
Melly's eyes opened to slits, and she could she the familiar, falsely warm face in front of her. Grey-haired and wrinkled slightly.
"Mayor Barly?" she asked, before her bony legs gave out.
***
"I just...why would you do such a thing?! Did you know how worried we were? Half the police force is out looking for you! What were you doing, Melanie?!" Her mother, blonde hair pulled back into a crisp bun and a emerald night frock and matching robe on her body stared down at Melanie, wet and cold, shivering and weak. Melanie looked sick, almost, her black shawl wrapped about her.
"I went to Father's grave," she whispered, eyes never leaving the ground.
"...Never again." Melanie's eyes shot up.
"You can't-" but as she rose to fast, her head spun and she started to cough rapidly, grasping at her throat as she fell back down. She calmed in a few minutes.
"Dresella, darling," the mayor came behind her and massaged her shoulders. "You can't do that. It means so much to dear Melly."
Melanie stared evilly at the pair. "How familiar," she gasped, unable to keep the shock and anger out of her voice.
"I do suppose it's out of the bag," Mayor Barly cried, throwing up his hands.
"Children, John and I...well, we've been courting for a few months now-"
"And you were planing to tell us when?" Melanie asked.
"Don't interrupt, Melanie and you'll get the full story," said John Barly with a smile and wag of his finger. Melanie stared. Did she...did she see an orange tinge to his hair. Melanie locked eyes with her mother again, and the two stared down each other evilly. It was true, Dresella was beautiful, and Melanie would look just like her at 40, but Dresella possessed a mean air Melanie could never reflect if she tried, and she was.
"Here dear," said the Major coming for Melly,"your shawl is soaked. Let me-"
"No," Melanie tightened her grip on it. "I'm sorry I interrupted," she sneered, rising ungracefully and with difficulty.
"Melanie, you can't be insinuating that I was with your mother tonight?"
"You got here uncommonly fast," she said, without turning back.
"Melanie Rene-" her mother began, but John was faster.
"You're mother called me once she realized you were gone."
"And when was that? 20 minutes ago?" the look on John's face told her it hadn't been when she went missing. Melanie cringed.
"It's late. I'm going to turn in. Why don't you go spend some time with Angus, Mayor? He's still young and impressionable," she sneered. She wiped away tears as she ascended the stairs thinking to herself,"You might even convince him your his father."
Melanie deep down knew it was very probable he might be.
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