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riemmetric · 8 days

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I used to have blonde hair | Fanfiction

Fandom: 9-1-1

Characters: Orginal female characters, Athena Grant, Bobby Nash

Synopsis: AU where Marcy has an older sister and a niece. She's hated Bobby for ten years. She comes to LA to get closure. A few snippets of scenes about anger, sadness, family and grief.

Authors note: A week ago, @spacey-iris made a post wondering if Marcy Nash had any siblings. The question stuck with me. I love writing, I haven't done it in a while, this silly show has been on my mind a lot lately, I had a free weekend. I wrote this sketch of fanfic, focusing on an economy of words. This half original fiction, half fanfic, because a lot of it is focused on two original characters I created. Assumptions I made for this story: Brook is the older child (I don't remember if they say this in the episode or not, but this is an AU), Marcy is naturally blonde (it is in the episode and I don't care if it's supposed to be dyed or not, this is an AU).

Full story under the cut.

Anna at the stove, watching the coffee pot while it brews. Her little sister Marcy died ten years ago in a fire. Anna carries her everywhere she goes. Marcy shadows her every movement. Birth brought them together and death took them apart. The cycle of life.

Anna’s daughter Kirsten sits at the kitchen table. It’s just the two of them in the house. It has been like this since the beginning. Women become mothers when they get pregnant. Men become fathers when they see the child. Anna’s boyfriend became something else, a different human entirely. Suddenly he didn’t want children. Suddenly he didn’t want a wife. Letting him go has been easy, because he was an asshole.

“So you don’t think it’s silly?” Kirsten says.

Anna turns off the stove and pours two cups of coffee. For herself, a small porcelain teacup with floral design – she likes her coffee black and unsweetened. For her sixteen years old daughter, a big mug – plenty of space for milk and whipped cream.

“I do think it’s silly,” she says, sitting down at their small kitchen table, “but silly in a good way. I think it’s good to be a little unserious sometimes. She’s a cop, right?”

“Yeah,” Kirsten says. “She only live-tweets when she’s off-duty. She’s very funny. I guess she sees a lot of bullshit out there and needs an outlet.”

“Have you talked to her personally?”

“Yeah, I asked her what college she went to.”

Anna laughs behind her coffee cup. “Doing research early, are you?”

“Well, never too early to start, that’s what everybody says. She went to USC. Do you know their campus is right in the middle of LA? That’s pretty cool.”

****

Kirsten in her bed after midnight. She is nosy and loves social media. She loves watching people yell at each other in the form of text. She likes searching for people, putting together every bit of information that slips through their curated internet personas. She doesn’t talk about it. She doesn’t post about it. This is not about harming people, it’s not about cautionary tales. It’s for her own personal amusement.

Finding Sergeant Athen Grant of the LAPD wasn’t hard. She’s told Kirsten very little about herself, but she’s only told the truth. There is only one LAPD and they are not shy about posting on social media. There aren’t many women named Athena in the world. Not that many black women police officers in LA either. She reads blog posts and Facebook posts and watches Instagram reels and, little by little, Athena Grant materializes in her room, takes shape in her mind. A strong, reckless woman, who’s trying to do some good in the world, from within the confines of the system. Kirsten doesn’t know how to feel about it yet, so she scrolls further. It’s addictive. And then she scrolls to close to the sun.

****

“Mom.”

Anna wakes with a start. She has been a light sleeper for years. She doesn’t want to be a second late for anything.

“Mom, don’t be scared, there’s no emergency.”

Anna sits up and checks her phone. Almost two in the morning. No missed calls, no messages. Just her daughter in her room, with her own phone in her hand.

“I’m so sorry,” Kirsten says, “but I saw something on the internet and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I have to talk to you. I’ll spend the whole night thinking about it otherwise.”

Anna turns on the lamp and swings her legs down, making room for her daughter.

“What is it, honey? Some horror story on reddit?”

Kirsten opens her mouth, closes it again, swallows whatever it was she wanted to say. Instead of words, she shares her phone with her mother.

Anna takes it and is faced with the Los Angeles Police Department Facebook page. She is startled by this fact alone. It has never occurred to her that the authorities might have social media, but it all makes sense in the following seconds. Of course it’s a good idea to pay someone to highlight the good work they do. It’s all marketing, everything in life, nothing but marketing and public relations and advertising. Social media managers are among the pillars of our society. She scrolls through the page.

“What am I looking at?”

“Wait, I opened it for you. You probably scrolled past it when I gave you the phone.” Kirsten takes it from her, taps it a few times, hands it back. There’s a photo in front of her eyes now and her heart stops.

“That’s Sergeant Athena Grant, the woman I told you about, from twitter. Next to her, they say that’s her husband. Mom. Isn’t that… isn’t that the uncle Bobby you never talk about? Ghost uncle Bobby?”

A post about the mudslides that hit LA earlier that year. “LAPD worked closely with fire and rescue departments to ensure the safety of the inhabitants of the Hollywood Hills.” Sergeant Athena Grant had saved a woman from her ruined house, all by herself. The post was praising both her efforts and the exemplary command of fire captain Robert Nash of Station 118, who cleared the area and rescued the people trapped in their homes. “Husband and wife, they dedicate their lives to helping others.” A picture of them holding hands. The dark background of a night in the mountains, the harsh light of a camera flash, dirt and grime all over their tired smiles. Anna can’t speak.

Why did you show this to me Kirsten why did you show me this why why what reason does he have to smile why is he so happy who marries this man what’s he doing in LA why did you show me this why did you wake me up why why why

“I guess it is him, isn’t it?” Kirsten says. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have shown it to you.”

Anna turns off the phone screen and stares at the floor.

“It’s ok. I understand you can’t keep something like this to yourself.” A pause, a beat. “I honestly didn’t expect him to live this long.”

“You thought he would kill himself?”

“Drunks don’t have to jump off bridges. All they have to do is get behind the wheel.”

They sit in silence for a while. Then Anna gets up and goes to the kitchen. Kirsten follows and neither of them sleeps that night.

****

Kirsten found Athena through LAPD’s social media accounts. Anna asks her to focus now on the fire department. Their posts are more numerous, more cheerful. They have always been the good guys, without a shadow of a doubt. They don’t have to be conservative in their internet posts. They don’t have to close their comments. They are unquestionably heroes. Anna looks at pictures of her brother-in-law living his life and wants to scream. For years she has kept him buried in closets, in boxes, in deep corners of her mind. For her, he died with the fire. For others, he’s been the hand pulling them out of fires, out of mangled cars, out of tsunamis and buildings broken by earthquakes, and houses flooded with silt and mud. Photos of him at the scene, after the emergency has been dealt with. Comments from people he’s saved. A wedding band always on his finger. These are the wrong people! These are the wrong people! That’s the wrong ring! Where were you when she burned?

****

It's July and there is a man crying in Anna’s dreams. She goes to sleep curled on her side and he falls next to her, drunk and exhausted, and weeps himself to unconsciousness, until she snaps out of the nightmare and turns her phone on for safety. He breaks from the closets and the boxes and the deep corners of her mind. He follows her to work, at home, in her dreams. She thinks about him every day.

Her sister is gone. Her parents, too. One after the other, the same illness, a few years ago. It’s her and her daughter and the loneliness tugs at her heart often these days.

For years she has thought about Bobby’s weaknesses, about his faults. Nowadays she thinks about his loneliness and her loneliness, about his pain and her pain, about his family and her family.

A question buries itself into her mind, deeper and deeper each day, extraction impossible. What if…?

****

“What do you think of LA for this year’s summer vacation?” Anna asks her daughter one morning. “We could look at colleges while we’re there.”

Kirsten understands. She takes a deep breath and she says: “Yes, I’d love to check USC out.”

****

Anna kneels in front of a gravestone with three names. Fresh flowers in a small pot. Kirsten at home, packing.

“Marcy, honey, I hope you’ll forgive me for this. I think I’m about to traumatize the hell out of your husband.”

****

They leave without a plan. Anna fears that waiting for a plan to hatch would extinguish her courage. She has a single thought in her mind and latches onto it. Talk to Athena. She’ll know what to do.

****

The LA sun, hot on her skin. The police station at the end of shift. The pulse drumming in her ears. The backpack she carries everywhere, carrying a bottle of water and a whole past life. A policewoman walking out the door. A hesitation of a single second.

Anna walks forward knowing she is about to change this woman’s life forever.

“Sergeant Athena Grant?”

“Who’s asking?”

She must be straightforward and firm. There is no messing around with this woman. Anna decides this makes it easier.

“My name is Anna Russell. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes, if you have time.”

“What about?”

Anna takes a deep breath. Reality is brittle and harsh all around her. Was this all a terrible mistake? There is always a choice. She can always flee.

“Your husband. I am—” she hesitates for a second, wondering how much this woman knows about the past. Surely she could have read the records herself if she wanted, surely she could pull those strings. But did she want it? If Anna would drop a name now, would this woman know who she’s talking about? She decides to keep the discussion focused on things she’s sure of. Things that exist in this world. “I am his sister-in-law.”

Athena Grant stares at her for a long time. There is something in her face, an emotion caged in her features.

“You got proof of that?”

“I do,” Anna says and pulls out a folder of documents out of her backpack. “I’ve got our birth certificates, a copy of her wedding certificate, her death certificate. I also have photos. If you want to see them.”

The policewoman is taken aback. She takes the file with trembling hands, looks through the names and dates.

“I don’t know how much he told you—” Anna starts.

“He’s told me all I needed to know. How did you find me?”

“Twitter. You and my daughter are in the same fandom.”

Athena Grant laughs. “Well, would you look at that.” She hands Anna back the file and adds: “I’ve got time tonight. He’s on call all night. Let’s have dinner. I know a place where we won’t be bothered.”

****

The warm lights of the restaurant, the dishes cleared, only drinks left. The table covered in photos. Anna tries a bold move.

“Does he talk about her?”

“No. Never. I only know her name because I read the file. I pulled some strings and got a copy of it mailed to the station. I had to know.”

“Of course. I would have done the same thing.”

Athena stares at her husband’s old wedding portrait. Younger, more hair around his temples, the same smile, the same hands. She picks up a group photo, the bride and the groom in the middle of family, everybody looking straight ahead at the photographer. Everybody except for the bride, whose head is turned towards her bridesmaid in the back. They’re laughing at a personal joke, oblivious of the world around them. Athena looks up.

“That’s me,” Anna confirms.

Athena picks up another photo. The bride wrapped in her bridesmaid arms, her feet off the floor, their smiles brighter than the sun.

“My hair now, this is not my natural hair color,” Anna confesses. “I used to have blonder hair, like her. We’re not twins, I’m older, yet every time I looked in the mirror… Anyway, I dyed it ten years ago and never went back.”

More pictures from the wedding. Bride and groom dancing. Then bride and bridesmaid, lost in their own world always, all smiles. Athena puts them in a neat pile. A photo of two young girls, sleeping in the same bed. The quality suggests it’s a digital photo. It’s not Anna and Marcy. Athena sighs.

“You said you only had one daughter?”

“Yes.”

“So this is…?”

“Yes.”

“My God.” She turns the photo in her hands and the back confirms it: Kirsten and Brook after Thanksgiving dinner.

There are other pictures with the kids. A small boy always surrounded by two girls. The cousins, as close as their mothers. A pregnant woman in a long dress, two girls with their ears pressed to her belly. A sister waiting for her baby brother. A cousin whose family will get bigger. Athens holds it for a moment, adds it to a separate pile.

“You can’t show these to him.” This will break him. It will be over. I don’t want it to be over. I don’t want him to die.

“I won’t show him anything. You choose. You don’t have to choose any of them.”

“Why are you here?”

“I hated him for so long. I know it wasn’t technically his fault, but I can’t stop thinking that maybe it was. There are so many things that he—if he did them differently, none of this would have happened.”

“I would have never met him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why did you come to me with these?”

“I— I didn’t want to traumatize him. I wanted you to vet them first.”

Athena laughs. It’s a beautiful sound. “So much for you hating him.”

“He’s family. It’s been ten years. We’re getting older. I thought maybe… I don’t know. Is he sober?”

“He is.”

“Is he… is he ok? Is he happy?”

“As much as he can be.”

I want him dead he shouldn’t be happy he shouldn’t be happy he shouldn’t be here.

“I was angry for so long,” Anna says, eventually. “I didn’t go to her funeral, because I didn’t want to see him. I wanted him dead. I tried to heal, and then I saw the pictures of him, on the LAFD social media… I was angry again. But the more I think about it, I realize that nowadays I’m just sad. It’s all so, so sad. Everything that happened. Even his drinking. I thought he might be sad too. It sucks, being alone and sad. It’s the worst thing in the world.”

“He’s not alone,” Athena says, a reflex. Then Anna looks at her and she understands. “I see. You’re the only one who knows what it was like. How long are you staying here?”

“We’re here on vacation. Ten days.”

“All right. Give me your phone number. I’ll talk to him and if it goes well, you should come over for dinner sometime.”

“Thank you.” A pause, a beat. “You and I are not really, family, aren’t we?”

Sergeant Athena Grant sighs. She has learned that there are many hidden depths to that word.

“Not really. But there’s no reason we can’t be friends.”

****

Bobby Nash opens his front door and the past rushes in. For a moment, he can’t breathe. Then he can and he decides he doesn’t want to anymore. Then there is a warm hand on the small of his back and he takes a deep breath.

“Anna.”

“Bobby. How are you?”

He doesn’t answer. There is a teenage girl next to Anna and the passage of time frightens him more than the ghosts of the past.

“Kirsten?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Hi, Bobby.”

Athena Grant, off-duty, on another duty. She squeezes her husband’s hand.

“I’m glad you could make it. Kirsten, come meet my kids. I know we’re not blood relatives, but cousin is a very versatile word.”

“I’d like that,” Kirsten says.

“Good! We’re making dinner for our loved ones.” An emphasis on the last two words. Then Athena kisses her husband’s shoulder and takes her new niece inside.

They are stuck in the door frame. One step in any direction and the world changes forever. The world has already changed. It changed ten years ago.

“Let’s go on the back porch,” he says and Anna follows him inside.

****

“I don’t know what to say to you,” Bobby says.

“It’s ok. I don’t know either. I thought maybe… maybe we could just sit in silence for a while.”

“Just sit with each other.”

“Yeah. This was always the hardest part. The image of you here, under this sky, when she’s there, under ground. The sound of you breathing, when she can’t anymore. The sight of your chest rising and falling, when hers sits still.”

They watch the garden, the setting sun. The LA air, hot and humid, the ocean so close. They listen to the indistinct chatter inside, dishes clinking together, the kitchen sink running and stopping, running and stopping, running and stopping. The mundane soundtrack of life on Earth.

“Do you smoke?” Anna asks.

“No.” His voice, a little scandalized. “Do you?”

“No. But scenes like these always look better with cigarettes. I’ve seen too many movies, I guess.”

A burst of laughter from inside. Young girls at the dining table, chatting.

“I wanted to die,” Bobby says. “For a very long time. There are moments when I still do.”

“Me too. While you were at the funeral, I was at home drinking wine. I didn’t want to remember a single second of that day. It didn’t work.”

“You need something stronger than wine for that.”

“I figured. But by the time I did, I was at that stage of grief when you can’t move. So I just sat on the bathroom floor. Easier to clean. I just sat on the bathroom floor and stared at the door, waiting for her walk through. For so long, I couldn’t move.”

A door opening and closing. The sound of his labored breathing, caught on so many swallowed words.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he says.

Anna looks at him. The face she knew, but with more wrinkles, more gray hair. Alive all these years. Alive and sober. The anger, suddenly like an explosion in her chest. The hate she has harbored for so long. It was your fault! It was your fault! If you weren’t high. If you didn’t argue with her. If you stayed in the house. It was all your fault!

Bobby looks at her and something breaks inside him. She has a different hair color, but they were sisters. He sees her and Marcy at the same time. What she would have looked like, had she lived. Except he built a life without her. If she walked through the door today, there would be no room for her at this table. There would be no room for her in his life.

His eyes well up and he knows he can’t stop crying now. He keeps his back straight, shoulders shaking slightly, only the head bent, all the tension concentrated in his closed fists.

Anna doesn’t understand at first. Then there’s laughter coming from inside the house and she does. He doesn’t want his wife to see. Something breaks inside her too.

She could kill every person in the world and it would not bring her sister back. She digs her fingernails into her ankle. Here. Right now. This is real life. These are the people you have. These are your puzzle pieces. Make something with them. Make something nice.

She reaches for his hand. There is nothing to say and she finds comfort in this thought. Everything is both ok and not ok. And it will be both ok and not ok. Everything is the just the way it is. She holds onto his hand the tides of time carry them forward.

#911 abc #bobby nash #athena grant #mine:writing #this was very fun for me to write #i missed writing so much 🥺#i have amateur writer in my bio because i genuinely am this has just been a very busy year #i hope somebody else will enjoy it. if not. it was a great exercise for me anyway #fun fact: i didn't know what names to choose and i picked anna and kirsten after some of my favourite characters #from emily st john mandel novels: anna from the lola quartet and kirsten from station eleven :))#thanks for the idea spacey-iris!#writing 911 fanfiction oh there is no going back for me now is it :)))

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