and after the storm I run and run as the rains come

((Potential trigger warning for servere anxiety and angst and daddy issues and all the makes Sophia Sophia. Sorta goes with this old fic.))

Sophia hasn't left her apartment in two weeks. She hasn't seen anyone aside from her cousin Alice coming in to try and take care of her, but she keeps sending Alice away. She doesn't want to be taken care of or loved or even looked at. Why? Why should she have that? No. Alone. Alone is better. Alone is what it's been since Daddy left, and she can be fine. She can paint.

She paints. She paints in a manic manner. Canvas after canvas, paper, walls; everything is painted. Colors are dark and thick as she's pushing everything she feels as far as she can spread it. She's covered in days of paint. She hasn't showered in days. She hasn't eaten. All she has done is paint or sit in the corner.

She likes sitting in the corner. Nothing can get her there, and she can see if anyone tries to come inside. No. No one can come in. There's not enough space. Not enough air. Only Sophia. Just Sophia. Alone.

She hasn't seen or heard from her father since he was here and she's glad. But she's not. He should have called. Should have come to see her. She doesn't want him and she does all at once. It hurt. He made her hurt. He chose his own pain over her and she can't figure out why. Why can't she just be his little girl again? Before the wings, before the death, when they were happy. When they smiled. She just wants to go back. She needs to go back.

And all of her paintings are bad. They're ugly and not happy. They remind her of Mama dying and everything that came after. She wants pretty paintings. Pretty and happy, none with the colors of Mama's hair or eyes. Nothing Daddy will be sad to look at. She needs paint better pieces for him. Then he'll come back.

She goes over to the window in her living room, pulls it open, and throws one of her paintings out. It's dark, covered in black and deep reds and purples, with a pair of wings drowning in the colors. She watches it fall a few stories to the sidewalk and it feels good. She turns and grabs the next piece. It's the colors from her mother's dying eyes all spalshed and swirled together, and that too she throws out the window. And just like that she is throwing every painting she can get her hands on out the window.

Make it go away. Make it all go away, and make Daddy come back. No more painting, no more wings. There'll be no more sadness and he'll come back.

There are days Sophia Murphy doesn't leave her apartment. Some days it's all just too much, and the real world is too big for her to exist in. In the solace of her apartment she doesn't have to meet people, or avoid their eyes, or touch them. In her little space she can be completely alone. She likes being alone.

Today though she's getting a little antsy with being alone in her apartment, and she has decided to venture out. She pulls her thick leather jacket on over her t-shirt and jeans, then slides her feet into her boots. Somehow these are a comfort to her. They help her feel protected and safe when nothing else does.

Sophia knows her father is in New York, and she knows that he wants to see her, but she doesn't want to see him. She doesn't want to talk to him. She's tired of his reasons and excuses. It's always about him and his pain and his drinking, and she's tired of it. She knows what it feels like to want to drink all of the pain and memories away, but she doesn't because of him.

So today she is leaving her apartment, her anxiety and worries aside. She's walking through the city with her arms tight around herself, and she's finding her way to a local art fair. She'll wander around and look at things, maybe look for someone she knows. Mostly she's just there trying to put herself in the real world.

She hums as the brush moves over the canvas, but she hardly realizes she's doing it. The colors she's using are dark and they swirl together and crawl all over the blank space. What she's creating goes against the light, airy tune that she hums. It's one of the songs her mother used to sing her to sleep with, the same one she sang to her mother as she died.

She never realizes it when she's humming it, and usually stops before recognition. It's a good thing, because she tries to push that moment from her mind as much as she possibly can.

Painting helps. She's always able to go somewhere else while she's painting, finding meditation in the wisps of the brush. She goes into a state where the rest of the world melts away, and she isn't a part of it. She isn't Sophia Murphy.

Eventually she stops and steps back to take a look at her work. Splashed in with the darkness are patches of bright red, but there's no real object there. Just a feel. Everything that she feels. Dark, messy, red. Red is death and she is death. She doesn't think there is anything angelic about death at all.


"Silly girl, what are those?"

A little girl of five spins around, her blond hair billowing out around the paper hanging off her back. "My wings, Mama!"

"They're beautiful honey, but you should take them off before your Daddy sees them."

"But won't he love them? Now I'm just like you. And I'm just like him."

"Oh Fi."

The woman wraps the little girl up in her arms and holds her close. The girl leans into her mother and breathes in her lovely scent...

A ripple of pain stems down her back, and Sophia closes her eyes. They want to come out, but she doesn't want to let them. Daddy isn't there to see, but he wouldn't like it either way. And Mama will never see again.

It's been three years, but it's still not long enough.

She lets the gravity pull her to the floor slowly, and she drops the paintbrush. Her arms wrap around her knees and she hugs tightly to them as she silently begins to cry. She still feel the dull ache of holding her wings in, but she isn't going to release them. Through her tears the humming starts again.