themeletor | this can't be good for my Eternal Soul--

Title: The Phantom Lady!
Length: 537 words
Rating/Warning: mature sexual content; disturbing content
Note: Somewhere in a small dark place between the book and the movie, this happened.

ima_pseudonym coaxed it out, and I bit and kicked and screamed and fought but it would be written despite my best efforts. I'm so very, very sorry.

Just how many times had Kitten stood, pyjama-clad and whisper-silent, in the open doorway of her Father's room while he dreamed his dreams and slept the night oblivious to her watchful presence? Only once, in fact, and when he opened his eyes he must have thought himself still quite asleep, the golden-haired creature there standing before him in old cotton sleep-pants and a sleeveless ribbed undershirt nothing more than an inelegant creation by his sleep-woozy mind, heavy with guilt as it still very much remained (despite recent reconciliation with his long-lost son, who had carefully selected her best hat for the occasion), for it was much more difficult to forgive oneself than it was to accept forgiveness – tacit, of course, meaning neither could be made to take the blame for the incident – from one's castaway prodigal transvestite son, who had seen more in London than she would even care to tell him, and among those things had been her mother, the no-longer-Phantom Lady. Though She may have appeared there in his bedroom that night, to his uncertain eyes before he whispered: 'P. Patrick?', for the shirt and long pyjamas had begun to fall into place—before they fell to the floor, that is, as 'shh' Kitten said and slipped under the covers into the warm cocoon-mattress-space beside Father dearest, whose eyes grew deeply wonder-full as he captured a curl of her honey-blond silk-shiny hair between his fingers and murmured: 'You look so much like her, you know,' with the sound in his voice of a heart truly breaking.

Kitten knew this, of course—knew both things, in fact: the sound of a broken heart (with which she was acquainted most intimately, sad to say!) and her striking resemblance to that one Eily Bergin (or whatever the name was she called herself now; Mrs. Jeffrey So-and-So of a multi-phone household and don't you forget it, dearie, though if you do the real Patrick will be happy to remind you). They were both of them quite tragic, and both of them reasons for her to scoot up on the bed, kissing Father quite carefully and deliberately on the lips before turning silently onto her opposite side, breathing deeply the precious odours of warm linen and cool, clean cotton; smells of home and belonging.

He was infinitely gentle, no different from what she had expected; utterly careful and sweet, even in those moments when Puss felt tears burn her eyes (for there are some things that no amount of tenderness can change). He was quiet, too: altogether silent but for those involuntary noises. When it was over, Kitten couldn't be sure that her heart might not have stung a little less had he just let himself say the name that lingered like burnt sugar—sweet, bitter, and blackened on his tight-drawn lips before he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Kitten got up to leave—or she began to, anyway; his hand was suddenly on her arm and so she lay back down, honestly quite relieved that she would not have to stand until the morning. It was the only night, out of those that were to come, the entirety of which Kitten spent in Father's bed.

[I... really am sorry. This hurts me more than it hurts you. I promise.]