Work Text:
.
1
.
Melina always awoke naturally these days. Her father and Janice were always insistent that she get the rest that her body demanded, no matter how late in the day she remained sleeping.
The haze of sleep clings to her consciousness even as she opens her eyes, but Melina pushes past it to remain awake. Orange light is flooding the room, and she’d like to savor the golden hour. It’s a rarity for Melina to be seeing the sunrise anyway.
Thankfully, it seems like today will be a good day–her joints only minorly protest the motion of pulling herself up to sit.
To her side, backlit by the rising sun, is her girlfriend. Janice hasn’t stirred yet, so Melina takes a moment to appreciate her without the usual flustered reaction it would elicit.
Her lover’s hair is already a vibrant red, but it seems to glow like a fire in the refracted light; she can’t resist brushing away Janice’s bangs and carding through them with her fingers. Janice looks different in the mornings, before she’s gotten all dolled up. Her freckles are more visible, dotting her face like constellations, and her cheeks have a naturally rosy hue. Her lashes are long and red, and Melina loves her just as well without all the makeup.
Janice’s face scrunches and she squints her eyes open. “‘Lina?”
“Good morning, love.” Ignoring the twinge in her spine, Melina bends to press her lips to her girlfriend’s forehead.
“What are you doing up?” Janice’s doe eyes slip back shut and she slings an arm around Melina’s waist. “It’s too early…”
The blonde huffs a laugh and relents, sinking back into the pillows and compromising with half-laying down. Janice takes the opportunity to lay her head on Melina’s chest.
“Aren’t you usually up around this time?”
“Yes, but I’m not you.”
Melina lets the subject drop, not wanting to argue so early in the morning. Janice cares for her health, and she shouldn’t complain about it.
It could be worse. Janice could coddle her just like her father.
Father had always been very protective of her. It wasn’t helped by Melina’s mother’s passing or the early onset of her condition. Melina does feel bad for her agitation at his hovering, knowing well that some people would envy having such a doting parent.
It’s terribly stifling after 23 years, if one could imagine.
A knock at the door. Think of the devil and he shall appear. It creaks open to reveal her father, bedraggled as always.
“Janice? I- oh!” He stops in the doorway, whisper-yelling. “Melina! You’re up!”
“Good morning.” She almost wants to pretend like her and Janice weren’t cuddling, but Melina remains still. Father doesn’t know that she and Janice are dating, but he seems to just write off their affection as friendly. They could probably kiss in front of him and Father would comment about what good friends they are.
“You should be resting.” Father hovers, seemingly torn between coming in to fuss over his daughter and leaving. “It’s too early for you to be up.”
“I’ll rest in a bit. Where are you off to?”
“I have a meeting in London with our benefactor. I should be back by the end of the day.”
Melina’s father continues to stand in the doorway until she shoos him off, assuring again that she’s fine. Janice would contact him if anything went wrong.
She sighs once the door is shut, and Janice picks her head up to kiss the blonde’s jaw. Melina responds by giving her a proper kiss, which elicits a soft giggle from her girlfriend.
.
2
.
Melina wakes up alone.
That’s not so surprising as the fact that she’s waking up at all. There’s a buzzing in her head, a blaring alarm that says she should panic, that something is wrong because Melina was supposed to be dead and-
A cool wave washes over her, reminding her, unbidden, of Janice. A spike of panic is met with a gentle hush. A lull and a reassurance.
Her eyes open, focusing sharply on the gray walls of the castle. Melina recognizes it from the few times that she’d been into the large empty space at the top of their accommodations. It has been quickly taken over by construction for whatever machine her father and Mr. Descole had been working on.
The machine in question is beeping and whirring, an organ hooked up to a screen displaying an outline of herself and Janice. Wires connect the display to a helmet pressing down on her head.
Melina feels like she’s buzzing still. Not quite tangible, somewhere between states but settling into place. For the first time in a very long period, she isn’t feeling any pain.
Her arms move without difficulty as she lifts her hands to take the helmet off her head. There’s no swelling or stiffness in her joints and she looks down at her hands
Melina recognizes the hands that she’s looking at, but they aren’t hers.
She recognizes the freckle on the second knuckle of the pinky and the painted maroon nails. She knows them, but they’re not her own.
These are Janice’s hands. She flexes them experimentally. This isn’t her body. These aren’t her hands. Melina doesn’t know whether to be relieved at her apparent life or to feel wrong in someone else’s body. Or maybe they’re sharing, somehow?
Janice’s presence is frayed at the edge of her consciousness, flaring at the mention of herself. She’s in there somewhere, but Melina must be dominating the consciousness. Maybe she could learn to communicate, somehow?
The buzzing sensation settles as she takes the contraption off her head, allowing her to focus more clearly on her surroundings. The contraption that her father and Mr. Descole were building must have been the cause for this, but she’s not sure of the circumstance.
Speaking of her father, he’s pacing a few meters away.
She has no trouble standing, and that in and of itself is amazing. Her knees and hips don’t protest the motion as she’d grown accustomed to.
It’s overwhelming as it is confusing she stands finding no difficulty in the task that in of itself is amazing her knees don’t creek they don’t tinge. They don’t protest the motion and they’re not her legs at all.
Looking down at her body, the woman is struck with a sense of wrongness. This truly is Janice’s body. Her skin is less pale, less sallow than Melina’s had been. She’s in her favorite dress–the purple one– and her brown heels. Melina’s pendant rests around her neck, the only thing that feels right.
Father’s hands are clutching at his frizzy curls as he mumbles to himself. He looks considerably worse for wear.
“Ah-” She planned to call out to Father, to ask him all the questions rattling in her skull, but stopped short on account of her voice. It’s Janice’s voice, of course, and not her own, but it threw her off enough to make Melina close her mouth.
This is all so wrong.
“Janice?” Facing her, Father looks different. There had always been overwhelming love in his eyes when he looked at Melina, but there’s none when he’s gazing upon Janice. He speaks differently too. “It didn’t work, I’m afraid.” His face is pinched with melancholy and frustration. “I’ll get another to try.”
She opens her mouth to explain. Whatever he’d done had worked, presumably, because Melina was here and not dead.
‘Don’t!’
Janice’s voice rings clearly in her head, to the point that Melina almost winces. The voice quiets in apology, returning to more of a presence in the background. Vague imagery is projected instead of what Melina knows to be Janice’s flat out in London.
This was her chance, then, to live. Not to survive as she’d been surviving before, but to live freely. Without illness.
Without her father.
Melina keeps her mouth shut as she’s escorted out and Father takes her back to London.
Father doesn’t talk to her for what must be hours spent on the boat. During that time, Melina retreats into her mind to attempt contacting Janice. They do manage to reach some sort of communication in the end. It seems to take effort on Janice’s end to form words and make them audible on Melina’s end. Images and feelings seem to be easier to project.
It’s rather like Melina is driving a car with her lover in the backseat. In that metaphor Janice’s body would be the car, and that thought is enough to make Janice laugh. It’s music to Melina’s ears.
What she gathered from context and playing a game of hot and cold with Janice, Father had created a machine to put Melina’s mind into Janice’s body. Her lover had been willing and able, but Melina finds herself conflicted.
As much as she didn’t want to die, it’s not like she would rather steal someone else’s body and live their life. It didn’t seem terribly fair. Janice sends another wave of reassurance.
Melina’s father drops them off at shore and heads in his own direction without so much as a goodbye. His demeanor is rather startlingly different to the father Melina remembers. He’d always been kind to Janice in her presence before.
.
3
.
Melina wakes up on a boat. The choppy waves and rising sun must have been the reason for it, but she also didn’t particularly sleep well.
Ambrosia was in the distance now, confirming her suspicions about where they’d been headed. Janice’s anxiety creeps up her spine.
The little girl is curled up against her rather than with Melina’s father, all too telling of how he was treating her. Melina hugs the girl closer, not wanting her to get sick from the spraying water and early morning chill.
The poor thing. Melina doesn’t even know her name, only that she’s another victim of Father’s will to keep her alive.
It feels wrong to call her Melina, even if her mind has also been inserted into the young girl’s body. It’s clear that cracks are beginning to show in her psyche, though. The girl was talking about Melina in the third person the previous night, and generally was acting more childish.
Melina knows herself to be fading as well, but it’s not as if she’s indistinguishable from Janice.
At least the little girl has enough fight to dispel Melina from her mind. It was terribly unfair for Father to do such a thing to someone so young. He probably considered her to be something more akin to a blank slate.
It was probably terrible for the Melina in her mind too. Coming to consciousness in Janice’s body had been strange enough; Melina can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up in the body of a seven year-old girl, much less a stranger that’s fighting her presence.
And what was Father even doing? All of what Melina had seen of her Father with the girl had been outright neglect, dismissal, or lying about her presence and trying to convince the professor that Melina was lying.
It was incredibly hurtful, but it wasn’t exactly as if she could argue that she was Melina, actually, and that he was kidnapping people to get her back.
Beside her, the professor shifts. He lifts his head, squinting against the sun.
“Good morning,” she murmurs to him, and he nods in acknowledgement.
“Did you sleep well?”
“As well as I could, I suppose.” Melina’s back aches from their awkward positioning. It’s not as bad as it could be.
Layton hums again, then changes the subject. “May I ask a few questions? We weren’t quite able to talk before we were interrupted.”
“Go ahead.”
“So your friend, Melina…”
Girlfriend, she wants to correct, but doesn’t. “She passed on a year ago. This girl is saying that she’s a reincarnation of Melina.”
“And yet Mr. Whistler, her father, has a connection to this girl.” The professor shuts his eyes, thinking. “He claims that he only calls her Melina as a sign of affection.” His mouth twitches into a frown.
Melina frowns in turn. “I hope you don’t think a liar of me.”
“Of course not. There are certain elements of this that must not be as they appear.” He hums, then meets her eye. “What do you know about Melina’s father? Her family?”
“Her mother died when she was very young. Mr. Whistler was always…”
‘Obsessive.’
“Overprotective of her.” Melina ignores Janice’s suggestion. “Even more so when she became ill.”
“How long have the two of you been friends?”
“Since we were children. The two of us had piano lessons back to back and became acquainted between lessons.” She smiles, and Janice pushes fondness her way. “Janice was always better at singing than myself, and I was better at piano.”
The professor pauses, and he tilts his head. “Pardon?”
“Eh?” For a second, she doesn’t realize what she’s just done. “Oh! Sorry, I’m just tired. Ignore me, ahaha!”
Melina can feel her lover grimace.
‘He’s onto you.’
She offers a smile, and his expression gets a bit more intense.
“Say, Janice, do you recall what you wrote on your introductory paper for my class on music through the ages?”
Janice scrambles to find the right memory and push it through to Melina’s side. Thankfully, she’s saved by the little blue bell. Luke begins to stir, and the professor’s attention is diverted.
The little boy scoots closer to his mentor, and Layton takes off his blanket to lay it around his apprentice. They have a soft exchange, something to the effect of Luke wanting to be awake if the two are investigating and the professor assuring him that he can sleep in. They’ll probably need it.
Melina sighs in relief. It was very odd to be on the receiving end of one of his stares.
“Either way, Janice,” Layton murmurs once his apprentice is settled again, “I have to express my condolences. It’s very difficult to lose a friend, and more difficult if they’ve been by your side for years.”
There’s a depth to his gaze that speaks to personal experience.
“It was difficult.” It would be difficult, whenever Janice had to be on her own. The barrier between their minds was almost completely dissolved now. “But we can push through. The sun always rises after a cold night, after all.”
Whistler awakens next, saving Melina from further interrogation. They’re nearly to the island anyway.
.
+1
.
Janice wakes up alone.
She comes to herself standing on the sandy shore of Ambrosia.
She knew it was coming. She’d felt Melina tugging her up to the front, back into her body. She felt Melina’s presence slip from her mind.
Janice tried to keep her, but it was like holding water. The last dredges of her sweetheart faded to nothing as Janice’s mind properly aligned back with her body.
In the present, she can feel everything again. There were grains of sand stuck in her heels, and her body ached from running and falling and sleeping in an awkward position. Not to mention that she was both hungry and thirsty. Janice hadn’t felt any of that from her previous position watching over Melina.
Part of her wants to go back. Most of her wants to go back, both for the sake of Melina’s continued existence and to be rid of the discomfort of corporeality.
Melina used to think frequently about how much she loved inhabiting a body that could move freely. Her own body had been in near-constant pain, so Janice’s had been a dream to live in.
Janice couldn’t agree at the moment. Maybe it’s just because her body was throwing a fit at what they’d gone through over the last few days.
A tear falls down her cheek against her will. She takes a step forward, then another.
Whistler had thrown himself on the floor. Janice walks past him, favoring someone else to give her advice. Someone she knew to be trustworthy.
“Professor,” she croaks, finding her throat to be dry. “Melina has left us. Is there no way to get her back?”
And then the ginger shuts her eyes again, hoping to get back to where she and Melina had been.
It’s empty. All cloudy skies and wind-tousled grass. Her lover isn’t even a whisper in the wind now.
A warm hand on her shoulder makes her look up at Layton. He doesn’t say anything.
His eyes shine with empathy, and Janice knows he’s lost someone precious as well. There isn’t a way to get Melina back. Not now with the Detragan burnt out, and there never had been a true or ethical way to return her consciousness even with it active.
Another tear slips down her cheek. She hardly had time to grieve for Melina a year ago. Watching her slip away had broken Janice, and part of her heart slipped away when her lover’s eyes closed for the last time. Whistler had grieved as well, she knew, but it had been channeled into finishing the Detragan.
‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured her. ‘She’ll be back soon. We’ll have her back.’
There had been a terrible light in his eye, but Janice trusted him. Descole was shady but he wasn’t a fool, and Janice had readily volunteered to attempt accepting Melina’s consciousness. At that point, she hadn’t cared much for her own life without Melina around.
Janice doesn’t know what she’ll do now.
And then Luke is shouting, tearily adamant that Melina would live on in their memory.
She doesn’t know if she believes him just yet. The wound is too fresh for her to truly accept it, even if it was Melina’s wishes for her to live as herself. How could Melina ask her to move on so simply? How could she accept?
Then again, she thinks as she turns her eyes to Whistler, Janice knows what the refusal to move on can do. She knows what she’s been complicit in.
Melina’s father has picked himself up to throw himself at the Detragan. One last song for Melina, and Janice can’t help but join in to sing.
Despite being the sole singer in the opera, Janice herself had never sung it with her own mouth. It comes to her easily nonetheless.
This was the first step forward, then. The sun rises on the horizon.