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Elizabeth's eyes fluttered open, and she quickly craned her neck to look out the window. Morning was just creeping over the town, and it's sunrise cast shadows everywhere. She turned over, looking at Derek. He was still asleep. She watched his chest rise and fall with his breaths, then climbed over him, onto the floor.
Elizabeth walked out the door, letting the early morning rays of pink sun wash over her. The cold air tangled with the sun's warmth and blew across Elizabeth's skin. She walked down Derek's front steps and sat on the ground in front of his gate, watching the sun rise. She hadn't taken the time to watch the sunrise in what seemed like ages. It wasn't until then that she realized how much she missed doing meaningless things like this.
Elizabeth reached down, picking a small flower beside her. She smiled and traced her finger along the flower's petals. Elizabeth held the flower up to the horizon, making it look from her view as if the flower was holding the sun. she giggled at this. 'How childish!', she thought, but continued to let her mind wander as if she were a mere child again. She began to look for other flowers creeping out from between the cobblestone and the gate to intertwine stems with the one in her had and make a little flower crown when she realized how silly she must look. To think, a grown woman of nineteen, crawling around in search of flowers! She sat back down, dropping her flower and looking away from the sunrise.
She did her best to think of important things--things that needed to be planned. She started to wonder how she would kill Derek, even though the thought of it made her sick.
"Why don'tcha just kill him now? He's asleep. It'll be easy!" Oogie told her. Elizabeth quickly shook her head.
"No," she replied solemnly, "No, that's so--so," she thought for a moment; "It's so unsportsmanlike" she sputtered, not knowing the right term to express how horrible it would be to kill Derek when he was so defenseless--so peaceful! But then, her mind began to wander again to more pleasant things, like cloud shapes and fairy tales. How did the sunrise make her feel like this? She wondered.
"What are you doing out here?" a familiar voice mused from behind her. She turned to face the voice, and all the giddiness that had been filling her heart at thoughts of childhood drained. Derek smiled down at her and helped her off the ground.
"I was just watching the sunrise," she mumbled. Derek turned his head and looked towards the horizon. The familiar colors of morning widened his smile.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" he spoke softly, stealing glances at Elizabeth. She nodded absently, noticing that Derek was still holding her hand. His touch felt so nice against her skin and her heart seemed melted at his gaze. Wordlessly, she wrapped her arms around him. She stared up at him and her stomach knotted. Derek smiled, gripping her waist. He pulled her close and kissed her softly. Tears started to stream down Elizabeth's cheeks, but she prayed he wouldn't notice.
Elizabeth thought of the time she had asked her father what love is. She couldn't forget his answer. "Love is when you care for someone over anything else," he told her, "It's when they complete you, and you do the same for them. You share everything. No secrets. Secrets only cloud love, for love is the utmost truth."
"No secrets," Elizabeth whispered to herself, pulling away from Derek. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. "Derek--there's something I need to tell you," she said quietly, her stomach lurching horribly in her body.
"What is it?" he asked, still holding her.
"This is hard for me to tell you, but--" and she began to tell him of Oogie, despite the pain searing through her body and Oogie's threats screaming in her ear. She told Derek of Oogie's hold over her, and the pain he caused her. Everything but her mission. Derek listened carefully to her words, but his face was unreadable.
"D-do you believe me?" she asked him. He nodded, lifting her arm and examining it.
"That's how you got these scars," Derek spoke softly, tracing a thin pink line on her arm with his fingers. Elizabeth nodded.
"It's what happens when I don't do as he says," she told Derek.
"But, Derek, you need to understand something." She spoke softly, turning from his gaze. She paused for a moment not wanting to say what was most needed to be said. "I'm supposed to kill you,"
"What?" Derek couldn't understand what he was hearing. He took a step away from Elizabeth.
"Last night--Last night you promised me that you would forgive me for--forgive me for fate." Elizabeth stated. Derek nodded, taking steps backwards--away from Elizabeth. "Please keep your promise," she whispered, pulling the knife from its hiding place in the ruffles of her dress. She slid her thumb across the blade, though she was careful not to cut herself. To Derek's surprise, she didn't advance on him, but held out the knife, pointing it's blade towards herself. She took in a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and plunged the knife into her own stomach. Elizabeth looked up at Derek with a sad smile. Her legs were shaking terribly and she let her blood wash over her hands.
Elizabeth bit her lip and pulled the knife out of her stomach. Her teeth broke the skin on her lip, and blood began to seep from it. She fell to the ground, her legs no longer capable of holding her up.
Derek ran to Elizabeth and held her in his arms. Elizabeth smiled, clutching her stomach. He was dying. Oogie was dying! He was dying with her. She was free. Elizabeth clutched Derek's the sleeve of Derek's coat in an attempt to hold herself up.
"I don't understand," Derek said almost inaudibly. Elizabeth reached up, caressing Derek's face with her hand, and leaving smears of blood all across his skull.
"I couldn't--" Elizabeth couched, blood spilling from between her lips, "I couldn't hurt you." Derek tried to hold back tears of his own.
"I can't say that this doesn't hurt just as much," Derek told her, his throat closing on him "I love you, Elizabeth."
"It-t's a wonderful way to d-die, you know," she coughed. The muscles in Elizabeth's body all tightened at once, and then relaxed. "In p-place of s-someone else--" she rocked herself in his arms, trying to distract herself from the pain. "...S-someone you l-love."
"Lay me down," she asked him, thinking it would be less painful than being cradled as Derek was--though she hated having to leave his arms. He did as she asked, stretching out her body in front of him, and she immediately regretted her request. Elizabeth coughed and sputtered, unable to breathe, choking on her own blood. Her eyes widened as she desperately tried to breath, but found herself unable. Using all the strength she could muster, she pushed herself over onto her side. Blood spilled from her mouth, as she coughed. She gasped, taking in a much delayed breath, the exhaled it with a sigh.
Elizabeth felt embarrassed at how vulnerable she seemed--at how vulnerable she was. She did her best to mop up the blood on her face with the back of her hand, but being that blood was already covering her arm like an elbow-long glove, she only made it worse. She wanted to give up. She wanted to cry herself into her death, but she held strong--a hard task considering how week her loss of blood had made her.
Elizabeth smiled weakly up at Derek, but he didn't smile back. She wondered why this might be. There were so many reasons she could think of. Maybe it was the blood? While his beautiful face appeased her eyes, her face, death and weakness written across her features, surely could no longer be appealing to him. She pictured herself with much disgust.
Or was he sad? She was sad, but kept her spirits up. Dying meant she would never have to live without him, but he would have to go without her for the rest of his mortal life, wouldn't he? And if he loved her as he said, this would be cause enough to make him sad, wouldn't it?
Or did he just not care enough to give her the reassurance of a smile? This answer was the one she dreaded most. What if her impending death didn't bother him, and his "I love you"'s were just and act? And if they were, would she have still plunged her knife into her own stomach instead of his back? 'Yes' she answered her own question in her mind. Whether he returned her adore or not, she preferred this ending to her life's story in comparison to the other. The vision of the other road she could have traveled flashed before her eyes. She saw Derek's cold eyes. She heard the fidelity of his musical heart turn to a muffled beet--cold as everyone else in the world's--then diminish to nothing. Oogie's deep voice giggled in glee as she held the bloody knife in her hand. She saw herself collapsing in tears, longing for Derek to hold her, but reality striking her and reminding her that he was gone, and even if he was alive, he would be cold with hate from her betrayal.
Elizabeth quickly wiped these thoughts from her mind. Before she could think of another reason why Derek wouldn't smile, she felt something warm and gentle press against her lips. And electric shiver waved over her as Derek kissed her. He kissed her in a way that cleared any doubts of his love away. How could you kiss someone like this and not love them? Elizabeth wondered.
And the way his hand caressed her face--he surely couldn't find her repulsive as she thought he did. Her blood soaked him in red. It was a horrid sight to see him so serious, laying in a pool of her blood, but it also had an air of freakish beauty to it. He held her closely as her soul started to slip from her body and her chest moved up and down at a sluggish pace. Derek knew she was crawling inside of her mind--sorting everything out before she left. He listened for her heart, looking to it for her last words. He heard it beat out a soft, melancholy tune. It sung of unanswered questions, and remorse for everything but the present. The beat slowed, as if taking a retardando for the end of its song.
Derek was trying so hard to make out the last notes of her heart's song, he almost missed the words that slipped from Elizabeth lips. "Good bye," is what she muttered and then her heart's song ended at last. It seemed to grasp to it's final note, not wanting to let go of it, but the note grew soft and gave in.
Elizabeth's heart refused to beat again, and her chest did not rise with another breath. Derek stared at her body, realizing that what was once a person had become merely an object. Without a soul attached, she was only a relic of what she truly had been. Derek stared at her body, trying to take this in, but he wouldn't let himself believe it. He held her body up and her head fell limply back in a sickening sign of lifelessness. Derek buried his face buried his face in her chest, just above her left breast. Just above her heart. He wanted to slide his ear down ever so slightly to listen for her heart beet again just in case he had simply missed it, but he knew it wouldn't be any use and he couldn't bear to disappoint himself like that again. That's what his mind told him at least. His heart was telling him to slide his ear down and listen hard. In the end, his heart won.
Derek's head slid down Elizabeth's chest and he closed his eyes, listening for her heart. Nothing. He could feel hot tears forming in his sockets, but he only squeezed his eyes tight, and listened even harder. Still nothing. The tears began to fall from his eyes, leaving glistening paths down his curvy features. He pulled Elizabeth's body into his arms, cradling her. Her body was so warm, and it scared him to think her lifeless body could be what was warming his cold bones.
And wasn't it ironic? Her freedom had killed her.
Wasn't it Ironic? Once he found love, it was quickly taken away.
Wasn't it ironic? She had killed herself, yet it all seemed his fault.
(A/n: that was the end of "A Prized Possession" but there will be a sequel out soon called "Ghost of you". If you liked this story, please be sure to check it out.
But I'm not sure I'll post it here now. I don't like the chages they made here (like us not being notified when new things are uploaded...so everyone misses out on the new art and fictions...and it's so freaking hard to upload fanfictions! It takes me like half an hour to figure out what I need to change when I go notepad from MS word. When I've already spent hours of my time writing a chapter, I don't want to spend half an hour trying to upload it! it's getting rediculous!) so if I don't continue posting on this website, you can still find me at fanfiction.net/~sashah. I'll continue to post stories and chapters there. I've just about had it with this place.)
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