The dull ache in her lower back was unceasing in its torture now. No matter which way she sat, or leaned, or lay, or placed her hands on it; nothing relieved its constant attack on her. Vivian had never been so terrified in all her life, the baby was coming and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Alone now, since Frost'd had her moved from the shared cell, here in this concrete prison, her baby would be born. And after that...

She tried to focus on the now, to somehow get through this hell first. The periodic sharp invasions of contraction pain were the easiest times, oddly. Then she could focus on nothing but them, so entirely consuming in their cruelty, they gave little window of opportunity for darker thoughts and fears to break through the pain. Although they pressed at her temples, a slow thud of the threat of how this would end, making the pain unbearable. She was suffering this pain for a child she'd never have the chance to love. For a child who would never know love. A child that would be born into a life of... It didn't bear thinking about.

"Oh god, Wolfie. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please..." She cried desperately, willing him to somehow hear her and take her away.

As the pain started its gradual crescendo once more, she leaned against the cold grey stone, pressing her forehead to its cool surface in an attempt to take away the heat of panic. Her head hung low, staring at the floor beneath, hands clenched so tight that her nails drew blood from her palms as she rode the pain with a stiff jaw. She felt nothing, so intent in her will for this not to be happening now, even as a single drop of blood rolled down her wrist.

And then it happened. At first she thought she'd wet herself in fear, but the streams of warm fluid continued to trickle down her legs, soaking her underwear and pooling beneath on the cell floor. She thrust a hand down there urgently, as if by placing her hand over the source it would make it stop. But the liquid kept coming, unstoppable, dripping from between trembling fingers, splashing on the ground beneath in an unyielding pitter-patter of a doomed destiny.

"NO!" Vivian pleaded as she watched the pool beneath her spread.

"STOP! Not now, just wait. You can wait. Someone's coming for us, I know they will, just wait! Please!" Her voice was hysterical in its desperation, her own fingers clamping harder against herself to end this. Stall it. Anything.

Muse: Vivian Ward
Fandom: Pretty Woman
Word Count: 465

Notes: Continued as roleplay here at tenebrae_nostro
Backdated event.

I can't handle this anymore. It's driving me crazy. "Elevator music." I need to know, but...

...what if he's bad news, but what if he was wonderful? What if I got in with the wrong guys, but what if I found the right man?

"Ummm three." What kinda guy does a hooker like me meet, but what if he was one in a million? And those kinda guys, they don't marry you, they don't fork out a small fortune on a ring, but what if I got lucky? They just screw you and pay you, but what if he didn't? He's not gonna be what I want him to be, but what if he is?

"Yes marriages. Wait... You're kidding! 'Bridge over troubled waters' again." It was him, he gave me these scars. It's bound to be, guys like that, girls like me, it's what happens, but what if he didn't?

"Come ooooon, running out of quarters here." What kinda guy wouldn't have bothered to come and find me, but what if he tried? What if it was him that put me there, what if he did it to me, but what if he didn't even know?

"Yes, New York." What if that was him, that... that thing, that monster, but what if it wasn't, what if he'd have killed it?

"Finally. Vivian Ward." He's not going to love you Viv, you're dreaming, but what if he does? There's no happy ending to be found here.

"No, I don't know. I had an accident, lost my memory." Drop it, don't chase it, don't set yourself up. I don't need this, those memories, these dreams, they're never going to stop. I'm so scared, but what if he can take them away?

What if... he loves me.

"No, no I.D."

What if I fucking can't find out anyway, because I don't exist anymore.

"Thanks for nothing pal. Now I'm four bucks down."



Muse: Vivian Ward
Fandom: Pretty Woman
Word Count: 310

When dreams come true: We've all had dreams that we would swear were real, this is your muse's dream. Tell us about it. Will they remember it when they wake? If so, show us it's affect on them.


At first, Vivian didn't wake to her cries. Choosing to bury her head beneath the crisp white cotton of the pillow, airy light feathers crunched in their luxurious egyptian casing as they moulded to the nape of her neck. Shrill impatient cries rapidly escalated into relentless distress though, and the comforting caress of dreams no longer offered sanctuary from her daughter's insistent calling.

Unexpectedly cool floorboards chilled her naked foot as she forced herself from her goose-down refuge, the retraction of her foot bringing her one step closer to unwelcome consciousness. Wearily she pulled on the white robe, tying a lazy knot at her waist and slid into the nearby slippers. In the half light of approaching dawn the room was swathed in deep blue shadow, only its edges and peaks tinged with hints of pink where the promise of a glorious day slowly cut through the darkness.

( Vivian turned to place a hand on his shoulder and kiss the sleeping man beside her )

Muse: Vivian Ward
Fandom: Pretty Woman
Word Count: 751

A fairytale in ruins.

It should have been a fairytale. Countless childhood dreams had long since been discarded, but not this. This she had clung to through everything, her one remaining innocence. If it were to happen, there would be swans, champagne and decadence. Of this, she was certain, for she had promised herself.

A silk train would glide effortlessly behind her, a rainbow mosaic of ever shifting reflections dancing in its wake as the sun filtered through magnificent stained glass. Towering floral arrangements would flood the room with their opulence and scent. This would be her moment. That magical moment where not a soul in the room would fix their gaze anywhere but on her.

And once, just once, no matter how fleeting, it would be they who wished for her life.

Yet here she stood, at his agitated insistence, amidst a morbid flurry of chaotic activity wearing torn silk and clutching a battered spray of crimson rose and stained bent lilies.

The rainbow had been shattered by vengeance. Tiny splinters and cruel shards of glass glistened on the empty seats, toppled floral arrangements sparkled on the floor with their murderous confetti. Pillars had fallen, crushed limbs lay trapped. The violins had ceased, and in their place a cacophony of pain and barked orders as salvage commenced. Death and destruction surrounded them.

"I do." She whispered somberly, then blood stained lips kissed her. A kiss so passionate, so en-flamed, so roused that she could not match it and barely felt it.

Haunted

((This fic is in response to Top's fic here. Just a quick mun note; I have heavily plagiarised from Top's post. This is deliberate, to amplify the same scene and emphasise the entirely different perspective of that idyllic scene. Hopefully that echo of those same moments is abundantly clear with the plagiarism.

Massive props and kudos to Topmun for providing such a wonderfully evocative moment, and opening up a plethora of opportunity to portray my muse's opposing pessimism, yet still share the same dream. Comments are not just welcome, but craved ;) <3 ))

If you think there's no such thing as ghosts, think again. There are ghosts, specters, haunts if you will. I believe in - no, I know. Ghosts don't have to wear bedsheets or clink chains, they don't have to hide in dark hallways and leap out at the unsuspecting.

I am haunted. I am a haunt. And you would never know it to look at me. I lie in my white bassinet gurgling and kicking out my legs against the cool breeze from the billowing white voile hung at the window. My room is the most idyllic shade of muted pastel green, not pink as my father wished or blue as my mother desired. I am perfect, yet I am not to be. And this room of mine, this perfect room of hope will never be used. She knows this, she lives in terror of this. She waited a lifetime to find love like me.

She sits there, in that pristine white rocking chair, rocking silently on the floor that's shined so well that her reflection could be seen should she look down, just once. She never does. Silently she sinks back into the macabre, spiritless she stares into the distant mountains, but sees nothing of their majestic beauty, for all she can see is a futile dream tainted by blood. I am stained and bleeding, crimson pools seeping into and masking the yellow and blue threads that are the tiny flowers on my sheets. My gentle cooing has migrated to breathless rasps. She wishes she could take another pill right now, swig from the bottle, see this how he sees it, see this how she did just a short while ago when she was rubbing paint on his cheek. But the shine of her synthetic euphoria is fading fast and a deathly pallor consumes me and her.

Gone are the plastic erroneous hopes that something as simple and as fragile as his hair could protect me, I am dead and mutilated and yet she can still cover for me and her sanity with a smile. A smile as apparently natural as the breeze that makes my curtains dance. But it was him, Frost, that brought that breeze, an ominous reminder of my fate that sent chills down her spine and brought the sickening taste of copper to her mouth.

She turns to softly kiss his hand, lamenting that things were not different. In this moment, in a crooked mockery of their history, his was the innocence, his was the optimism and hers was the twisted morbidity of realism. For all his attempts to break her, she couldn't break him in return. She had found the heart inside of him through me, and she couldn't take it from him.

Vivian banged on the door of her apartment, a new flake of paintwork floating to the floor as her knuckles rapped on the familiar aging layers of gloss. "Yo Kit, s'me!" she called through, trying to see the wrong way through the spy hole. "Get your lazy ass outta bed and lemme in."

The mould on the door jam had got worse, and at some point someone seemed to have taken out their frustrations with a fist or a foot on the crumbling plaster beside it. C'mon Kit, answer the door already. I need you to be here.

Vivian knocked again, there was more volume to the cheap plyboard's reaction this time, yet somehow less hope, somewhere in the back of Vivian's mind she knew Kit was long gone, no matter how much she wanted it to be untrue and nothing to have changed. The knocks were slow, knuckles white as her balled fist dragged and lingered after each resounding thump. "Please be here baby." Her voice quietened as she spoke, pleading with the unyielding door that she'd passed through so easily so many times before, and only a few weeks ago, least that was how it felt.

"You ain't gonna get no answer there sweetcheeks." The voice from the stairs at the end of the landing coughed out. It was the voice that instantly had Vivian wishing she could slip out of the window and down the iron fire escape, but she didn't owe him any rent this time. Yet still, the habitual instinct of flight was oddly comforting.

"Kit still lives here right?" She questioned the balding overweight man as he neared. The pot belly was bigger, the clump of hair behind each ear had shrunk, but the greying white of his vest was no different, even down to the pasta sauce stains.

"Well fuck me, look who it is. I'm guessin' you aren't here to settle up that bitch's back rent if you reckon she's still here. She upped and left about eighteen months ago, left all her shit here too. How's about you work it off for her princess?" The chubby hand trailed over her shoulder, a yellowing nicotine stained thumb just catching her nipple as the corner of his lip curled up in sleazy suggestion.

"Yeah right Carlos. In your dreams." Vivian pushed his intrusive arm away with practiced ease. The distance between herself and the repulsive man already widening as she backed away. When the fiery redhead had put more than an arm's length between them, she turned on her heels, flipped him off over her shoulder and disappeared down the stairs hastily without another backwards glance. She'd head for The Blue Banana club instead, maybe someone there would know where to find Kit.

If she could find Kit, everything would be fine again. Everything would be normal. Whatever the hell it was that happened to her these last few months, years? Being back with Kit would fix it all. It was all she remembered, and Vivian clung to the memory of her long since murdered friend like she were the only piece of floating driftwood left of an entire shipwreck.

"Vivian. I'm sure of it. Vivian Ward. I even know my freakin' address. What? You think I pulled a valid name and address outta my ass?" Vivian's arms flailed and gestured in her usual exaggerated flamboyance in her exasperation.

She was nice enough, the psychiatrist perched at the end of her bed. Even sympathetic, but in that infuriatingly condescending way, like she was dealing with a complete nutjob. "We've had our admin department check your details... 'Vivian'. There was never anyone by that name at that address. Are you sure that's your name and address?"

"YES." Vivian rubbed at her temples irritated. "Kit de Luca, she lives there with me. I ain't makin' this shit up ya know. Ya know, if I was gonna feed you some bullshit, I'd have at least said I lived in some expensive uptown condo wouldncha think? Not some hole of a room that barely passes health and safety regs."

Despite her continued protestations, the response from her psychiatrist was unwavering, it was as if she'd never existed. She knew that was her name though, two hundred percent she knew. Vivian Ward. Why did she not believe her, why was there no trace of her?

"Fine, so maybe I lost a few months of my memory. Hell, I musta been on somethin' pretty hardcore to go marry some John just 'cause the freakin' condom split. But, ya know!" Vivian was sick to death of this infuriating game now as she threw her palms sky high in supplication, "Looks like I did. More fool me."

"Pretty narrow escape I guess." Except she knew that wasn't entirely true, the 'John' part maybe, who knew? Vivian's memory may have regressed to a few years ago, but that one recent moment, that moment where her newborn daughter was taken from her, lingered like the echoes of a nightmare you can't shake til you turn on the light.

"Look." Vivian's voice softened, pleaded almost. "I just want out now, I can't stay here forever. Except for the little difference of opinion of who I am, I reckon I'm all fixed up and ready to go live again. An' if you ain't gonna let me go, then I'll just walk."

A few hours later, Vivian signed the self discharge papers that had been prepared for her, papers that unbeknownst to her would be destroyed as soon as they reached the hands of one Charles Bowman, Chief Operations Director of the hospital. The same Charles Bowman who, along with her Psychiatrist, had received a tidy sum from the Frost Corporation for their silence.