Title: Free
By: Eligent
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A young Elle's life is forever changed when she confronts her childhood nightmare.
Author's Note: Still not English speaking.

***

The surprise spread through the court room with a roar, emotions running rapid as the viewers absorbed the unexpected verdict. How could he have been found guilty? No one had expected it. Even his lawyer, who knew that he was guilty, had thought that he would be acquitted. Of course he was guilty. This time like so many others. But how could he have been convicted? The evidence was circumstantial at best and the only witness was five years old and scared to death. The surprise was enormous and the room was in an uproar. Among the viewers men and women were crying with joy. They were fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, husbands and friends. The defense attorney looked shocked and assured the prosecutor that he would appeal. But the prisoner was calm.

He smiled.

Click. The first clicking, signaling the return of the lights, pulled him out of his dream. Click. The second one woke him up. Click. By the third one he opened his eyes and stared up into the fluorescent lights in the ceiling that were turned on automatically every day at six a.m. He sat up, like he always did. He went over to the sink, like he always did. He washed his face, like he always did. It was a normal day. A day like all other.

He looked himself in the Plexiglas-covered mirror. He had aged fast. He was an old man now, and he would only grow older. His black hair was turning gray, and was becoming thinner on the top. His forehead was wrinkled and his hands were full of liver spots. He had been here for thirteen years. He knew that he would never get out. He was serving seven lifetime sentences. For Angela. For Elizabeth. For Lillian, Christina, Mary and Juliet. And for Linda. Linda Greenaway.

Today was a day like all other, except for one thing. Today he had a visitor. His first visit in thirteen years. He looked at himself in the mirror.

He smiled.

On the other side of town, in front of another mirror, stood Elle Greenaway. She had brown, shoulder-length hair and brown eyes surrounded by brown eyelashes. Her face was thin, her skin smooth. She was of medium height and rather thin. She had just turned eighteen.

Her one birthday wish had been simple. She wanted to meet her mother's murderer.

She had regretted her words the very moment as she had spoken them. She had regretted them every second afterwards, and yet she had stubbornly stood by her decision. Yesterday she had even gotten a hair cut and had bought a new, crisp pantsuit and a white blouse. She didn't know why. The man she was going to meet had murdered her mother. She had no reason to dress up.

She hadn't seen the man in thirteen years. The one thing she remembered about him was his smile. He was like the Cheshire cat. He had faded away, but his smile had been left hanging in the air. And in her memory…

…he smiled.

They had brought him to a well-guarded visitation room. Its concrete walls were painted blue. The table in the middle of the room was made of wood, scratched by the numerous prisoners who had sat on this side, waiting. The buzzing fluorescent lights overhead cast a dull gleam on its surface. It was wide enough so that the person on one side couldn't reach the person on the other side. The chairs were also wood. Old, but sturdy. Definitely not comfortable.

The windows on the outer wall were covered with black iron bars. On opposite walls two metal doors faced each other. One for the intern and one for the visitor. Both were well-guarded by silent guards. The last wall was covered by a two-way mirror. Behind it stood the warden, more guards, Elle's psychiatrist and his own. He knew that they were watching him. He looked into the mirror.

He smiled.

Elle had been met by the gate by the warden. Guards had searched her clothes and her purse. She had filled out forms and waivers. All the time impatient. She didn't like the prison. It was big, gray and depressing. Her first impulse had been to turn around and run away.

She was prepared. She had gone through everything. The practical stuff with the prison's staff and the authorities. The emotional stuff with psychiatrists. She would be ready. She should be ready.

She wasn't ready.

She was nervous. When the guard escorted her through the long corridor down to the metal door she could feel herself trembling. Her mouth was dry and she was tired. She hadn't slept the night before. Her legs almost gave away beneath her and she couldn't think straight. The guard knocked on the door and it opened soundlessly. She stood outside the door and stared at him.

He smiled.

When she approached the table he rose up and stretched out his hand for her to shake. The other hand followed, as they were chained together. Elle didn't return the gesture. She stared into his eyes. They were cold and blue. Not light blue, or dark blue. Not sky blue, clear blue or ice blue. Just blue.

A guard pulled out her chair and she sat down. He was the first one to speak.

"I'm sorry for your loss. I know how you feel. My mother died when I was very young too. My father beat her to death. He was never convicted."

Elle didn't know how to respond, so she let him continue.

"If I'd known your mother was pregnant, I would never have touched her. Life is sacred to me."

Elle was speechless. She sat and stared at her mother's murderer. He looked so small, not at all the monster she remembered from her childhood. She had woken up in the middle of the night and heard sounds from downstairs. Scared as she had been, she had still tiptoed down the stairs. The whole time she heard noises. Glass breaking, hard thuds, her mother screaming.

She looked through the living room door and saw her mother lying on the floor, bleeding. Her mother saw her too and extended an arm towards her.

"My angel," she whispered as she closed her eyes. The man saw her too.

He smiled.

"I had a whole speech prepared," Elle said. "I wanted to tell you what you did to me."

"Then why don't you?" he asked.

"You ruined my life. You destroyed my father. You tore my family apart. You took away my mother and my sibling. I never even got to meet it."

"That was a mistake. I had never killed a mother before. A mother should be allowed to live and watch her children grow up. Your mother is the only one I regret…"

"How can you have killed so many people without feeling anything?"

"But I do feel. I kill in rage. I was angry with my father all through my childhood. He was the first one I killed. And I was angry with my mother for letting herself be killed…"

"Why were you so angry with my mother?"

"Because she reminded me of my mother."

He remembered seeing Linda in the grocery store one morning. She had been in the fruit and vegetable section, filling a plastic bag with red apples. She had looked at them, felt them, thought about them, chosen only the best. She had long, brown hair and brown, kind eyes. She looked so soft. Her dress was red, much like the one his mother had used to wear, the one she had worn the day she died.

He had followed her home and watched through the kitchen window as she unpacked the groceries. Then she made herself a cup of tea and relaxed for awhile with a book. He had left her reading in an armchair, but he had come back that same night. He had walked up the front steps and knocked on the door. She had opened and looked questioningly at him.

He smiled.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" he asked.

"Not any more. You've been in my nightmares my whole life. I've always been afraid, always looked over my shoulder. Never trusted anyone. But now I see how pathetic you are. You can never hurt anyone ever again. You are a coward. You don't have the guts to confront you anger, instead you take it out on others. You haven't just ruined my life, you have ruined your own as well."

"I'm afraid of you," he said.

She looked up, surprised.

He smiled.

Outside the prison the sun was shining, spreading a safe, warm light over the landscape. The trees were glittering and the leaves were laughing in the wind. So was Elle. She stood with her back to the prison and enjoyed the day. She compared the old man in the blue jumpsuit with the evil she had met in her living room. It had wasted away, disappeared, melted into a little puddle, like the witch in The Wizard of Oz.

In his cell, he was bathed by the same sunlight through the bars. He saw the forest bow to the wind and the clear blue sky. He compared the brave, beautiful young woman he had met today with the frightened child in a pink nightgown that he had thought of so often over the years. She was amazing, much stronger than he had ever been.

They both felt freer than they had felt in years. Freer than the birds that flew over the prison, freer than the fish that swam in the nearby river. Freer than the wind that swept away the past.

Elle smiled.

THE END