She Thought It Was Love (Pt. 1/2)

 Dun dun dun! Another two parter! The second part will be posted Friday and Madame Science will still be posted on Saturday as scheduled! 

I got super inspired by the idea of soulmates dying when one partner passes and this is the result. I hope you all enjoy! Thanks for reading!

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Gigadark dies on a Saturday, struck down over the Atlantic while in pursuit of the Supervillain known as Leviathan. His summoned clouds dissipate over turbulent waters, the sun finally breaking through the oppressive dark he’d rode in on and his body plummets into the waves with the sort of finality that even a civilian can recognize.

The League releases a statement before they even recover him from the ocean depths but, when they do find him, they call her in to identify him.

“It can’t be him,” Sophia tells the doctor about to pull the sheet back. She recognizes the other woman as X-ray, a former heroine turned mortician. “I—I would know.” 

X-ray gives looks at her softly. “I’m sorry, but I worked with him, Ms. Henning. We need a family member to identify his civilian identity and since he hasn’t any family left—“

“I’m the closest,” Sophia finishes. She takes a deep, steadying breath, trying to keep her eyes from going to the ripples and rolls of the sheet. “It’s not him. He wasn’t even—I would have known if he—“

“If he was a superhero?” X-ray asks. She sounds surprised. Shocked. “He never told you?”

He hadn’t, but that wasn’t what Sophia was going to say. She knew who he was without having to be told, knew everything about him without having to be told. She nods anyway because it’s easier than explaining why this can’t be him.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” X-ray says. She moves to the head of the table and puts her hand on the white, sterile sheet. She’s not wearing gloves. “Are you ready?”

No. “Yes.”

The sheet rolls back and she’s confronted with a high forehead, deep set eyes, the curve of a nose. The hair is disheveled, parts burned, others shaved, others weighted by what looks like oil.

Sophia feels her entire world turn on its axis, slipping, slipping, slipping until she’s no longer sure how she’s still standing. “No. This isn’t possible.” Her hand shakes as she reaches for his cheek. X-ray doesn’t stop her from feeling how cold he is, how still, how hard. She doesn’t snatch her hand back because she still knows the feel of his skin. “It’s him, but…”

X-ray’s shoulders tense. “But what?”

Sophia stares at Marlo’s face until the tears become too much and she’s forced to blink. They burn her cheeks, catching in the corners of her wide mouth until she tastes salt on her tongue. “It’s Marlo.”

“You said but,” X-ray says. She’s watching Sophia. “Do you have any doubts? For the record,” she hastens to add.

“He loved me,” Sophia says. It doesn’t sound like an answer, she knows, but it is.

————————

It’s the curse of her family that they die in pairs. Her grandmothers went together, hands locked between their hollowed chests, foreheads pressed together. Her parents didn’t have the good luck to plan their passing like that—Dad went down in a prop plane and Sophia and her siblings watched their mother sway and fall in the kitchen thousands of miles away.

“When we love,” she tells her brothers and sister in the Social Services office, arms clamped over their shoulders like she can keep them from being taken from her, “when we love, it’s forever. And when we’re loved, forever gets a little shorter.”

“At least we’ll be together until then,” Antonia says, fist pressed to bloodless lips. She’s 10 and still watches Cinderella and Mulan and all those movies where love works out and doesn’t hurt quite so much.

“I never want to be loved,” Dominic says, staring hard at the door. He’s just two years younger than Sophia at 12 and he knows what’s about to happen. No family left. No way for four kids to be placed together.

Sven, as always, is silent. He stares at her, memorizing her face, analyzing it. He’s six and so smart already, she hopes wherever he goes they can look behind his lack of words to the brilliant mind underneath.

She kisses the top of each of their heads and forces herself not to make promises.

—————————-

Sven is the first to arrive at her apartment, key turning in her lock without so much as a knock. She watches the doorknob turn and her heart clenches to know what he expects to find here. Her body, crumpled and still, cold like Marlo. She should have called, but she couldn’t make herself reach for the phone when—

Sven’s grey eyes, so much like hers, widen as he sees her sitting in the arm chair in the living room, alive. He’s across the room in three strides, their father’s long legs making quick work of the distance. He pulls her from the chair and up into his arms, dragging her face into his shoulder. She can feel him trembling and his sobs puff against the back of her head, completely soundless.

“He didn’t love me,” she tells him and then they’re both crying, grief and relief all wrapped together.

———————————————

“That heartless bastard,” Dominic says over the phone. There’s the sound of a speeding car in the background, an engine too powerful for legal freeways purring. Dominic’s always lived life faster than most. “I can’t decide if this means I should spit on his grave or not.”

Sophia is sitting in the circle of Sven’s arms, her younger brother unwilling to let her go even an hour later. She doesn’t tell him off for disrespecting Marlo because, at this point, she doesn’t know what she’ll do either. “When does Antonia land?”

“Not for another hour,” Dominic says. He’d bought their little sister a plane ticket as soon as they saw Marlo’s face flashing on TV, his civilian identity released in death. “Fuck.”

Sven’s hands flash. “We need to be there.”

Sophia nods. “Sven and I’ll go meet her at the airport.”

“Good,” Dominic says. The engine roars. “I’ll beat you there.”

—————————————————

Antonia’s hair is cherry red this time and, when she gets off the plane, she blocks the gangway for a solid thirty seconds as she stares at her siblings waiting in the terminal.

“I didn’t bring any clothes,” she says. “I just got on the plane.” And then she bursts into tears.

They usher her further into the airport, Sven grimacing apologetically at the people who were trapped behind her. Antonia seems hardly able to walk on her own, clinging onto Sophia’s arm like her life depends on it.

“I’m here,” Sophia coos, petting her hair and hugging her to her chest much like Sven had done to her earlier. “I’m here.”

Her curse is her siblings’ blessing and she can’t begrudge them that. They’ve all lost too many people in their lives not to be grateful for one small mercy.

“That bastard,” Antonia says because she’s always been more like Dominic than she wants to admit. “We had him over for Thanksgiving.”

“Like that’s the most unforgivable thing here,” Dominic mutters but he’s still got his arms wrapped around all of them like Sophia did all those years ago. 

“Technically,” Sophia says, “he had all of us over. It’s his apartment.” A shudder runs through her. “My apartment now, I guess. He left me everything.”

She feels half hysterical at that still—she’d never thought she’d inherit anything from Marlo. He’d sighed when she insisted on eventuality clauses in her will, in his, in the case they both went. He’d said it was impossible, that he’d go first, that she would live forever because the world couldn’t handle her absence.

She wonders if he knew all this time and never said anything.

She feels another wave of grief and horror and loss crash over her. “He didn’t love me.”

Her siblings hold her in the airport as she cries.

————————————-

Dominic ushers them all into his Tesla, sliding dark glasses over his eyes before anyone gets a chance to recognize him. “Hotel or your place?”

Sophia stalls at the questions, fingers freezing as she clicks her seatbelt in the backseat. Sven shoots Dominic a look from the front and signs something that she doesn’t quite catch.

Dominic grimaces. “Hotel, great, I know a great hotel. Let me just make a call.” He presses something on his phone, never looking away from the road. It answers on the second ring and he greets the other person in German. The conversation is quick and to the point.

After a moment, Antonia asks, “When did you learn German?”

“Dated a German model last summer,” he says and shrugs like it’s no big deal to pick up an entire language outside of three months. To Dominic, it really isn’t. “A friend’s preparing a suite for us. Room service or grocery store?”

Sophia’s eyes slide shut. “I just want to sleep.”

Antonia puts a hand on her knee and squeezes. “In a while. For now, why don’t I tell you what I’ve been up to lately? I know we haven’t talked in a while.”

“We talked last week,” Sophia murmurs.

“That’s a lifetime ago,” Antonia says. “You are not going to believe what my boss has me working on now—“

Sophia lets her sister’s voice drift over her and tries to focus on the words.

———————————————

They wind up in a hotel too fancy for Sophia to even know the name of, all sprawled across the King bed and eating dumplings out of the plastic containers they came in. There’s too much food by half and she doesn’t think Antonia even likes dumplings, but they’re hot and they’re filling and they don’t take any thought.

Dominic is the first to ask.

“Sophia,” he says, putting his container on the bedside stand, adjusting the rolled sleeves of his button down like he can pass for casual. “Why didn’t you ever tell us Marlo was a superhero?”

“Well,” she says and lets the container rest on her lap, mouth running dry as she decides to tell the truth. “I guess because he never told me.”

Antonia’s eyes flash. “But you Knew.”

“I Knew.” Sophia plays with the flaps of her container. “I didn’t think it was fair of me to know when he didn’t tell me.”

“What we are,” Sven signs, “is not really fair.”

“No.” She pushes her last dumpling around the bottom of her container. “I guess not. I didn’t think I had any right to make him tell me when I was keeping what we are from him.”

“So he didn’t know about the curse,” Dominic says. 

“Our condition,” Antonia corrects. 

Sophia avoids their eyes. In doing so, she accidentally meets Sven’s. He looks equally disapproving. “It’s not like it affected him, not knowing.”

Antonia opens her mouth. Closes it. Sophia knows the look on her sister’s face; Antonia disagrees. Finally, she says, “Maybe. Maybe not. But don’t you think he deserved to know that every time he answered the League’s call he risked your life, not just his?”

“He didn’t love me,” Sophia says. “Clearly it was a non-issue.”

Nobody really knows what to say to that.

———————————————————-

They fall asleep like that, in a pile, and it feels like the night Mom and Dad died. There are cardboard Chinese containers scattered on the floor and the gentle sound of her siblings’ breathing.

Sophia wakes up first, just as the sun starts peaking over the horizon. She’s crying, tears running down her cheeks as she stares at the ceiling. Her heart is beating too hard, too fast in her chest, and there’s ghost-warmth on her fingers, against her cheek.

Antonia jerks with a gasp, flipping out of bed like she’s been hit. She scrambles onto all fours, eyes wide and bruised as she looks at Sophia. “No.”

They all have their gifts and Antonia’s the only one who can never turn hers off. Perfect empathy, perfect understanding, the ability to sense the maelstrom of emotions around her. Sophia should batten down the raging tide of grief and hurt and relief inside her, but she can’t. She can’t.

“What’s happening?” Dominic asks groggily. He sits up, rubbing his eyes. There’s a smear of orange sauce next to his mouth. He frowns as he registers Antonia on the ground and Sophia lying still on the bed. “What—?”

Sophia can’t answer him. She shudders around the horrible relief in her chest, trying to make it fit with the image of his body burned against her eyelids. 

“He’s alive,” Antonia whispers, answering for her. She is not relieved. She’s furious. “The bastard is still alive.”

Sven picks up the glass on the night stand and and hurls it against the wall.

————————

Sophia wouldn’t say that she has the greatest gift of her siblings—in comparison her power is inconsistent and confusing. The Knowing doesn’t come when she calls and she can’t control what she sees in her dreams. It’s not quite future-seeing though she’s made a prophecy or two in her time.

No, the Knowing is knowing, putting pieces together and coming up with more than her mind ever could have. Sometimes she Knows what someone is thinking and sometimes she Knows what’s happening hundreds of miles away. Sometimes she Knows what to wear the next day or what bus to take to avoid traffic.

Sometimes, apparently, she wakes up and Knows that Marlo has a meeting with Foresight, head of the League, about the villain who’s been trying to kill him for the past two months. Sometimes she Knows that that meeting is today, that the location is already leaked, and that Marlo will be going anyway.

Who the villain is, she doesn’t know. Why the villain is targeting Marlo in particular, she doesn’t know.

What she does know is that Marlo faked his death, destroyed his civilian identity and broke her heart to protect her.

She doesn’t know how she feels about that.

(And, no, she doesn’t Know either.)

——————————————

“What the fuck,” Dominic says. He’s freshly showered in a white button down and the same pants from yesterday. He’d given his change of clothes, a similar outfit, to Antonia who’s busy trying to roll up the sleeves. “The bastard could still die.”

Sven gives Dominic a dark a look. “No shit.” He’s got his computer open in front of him, furiously tapping out half a dozen messages. He didn’t bring any of his guns to Sophia’s apartment and he’s not going to go back to his own to grab them. “I’ve got to stop on Eighteenth, my supplier there will hook us up.”

Sophia makes a sound of protest. “You guys can’t go after him. It’s League business, there’s no way—“

“It is our business,” Antonia practically snarls. Her fiery hair is hidden under a black cap, courtesy of Sven. “He’s going after a villain who’s already gotten too close. That’s why he faked his death, right? The guy was going to come after you to get to him.”

“We don’t know that,” Sophia says. Then, of course, she Knows and can see the photos they sent to Marlo of her office, their apartment building, her car. She curses and changes tactics. “Let me handle this, please. It’s dangerous.”

“That’s why Sven’s getting us guns,” Dominic says in his reasonable voice. 

“And bullet proof vests,” Sven signs. He closes his laptop and looks at Sophia. “We thought we lost you yesterday. Please don’t make us actually lose you.”

“He—he may not love me,” Sophia says in a small voice. She still feels his ‘death’ like an open wound, he doesn’t love me ringing in her head. “He—he left me.”

Her siblings exchange telling looks.

“We can’t take that chance,” Antonia says for them all. She puts her hand on Sophia’s shoulder, comforting. “Together?”

Sophia’s hardly going to let them handle her problems for her.