Story Notes:
An AU As the World Turns Bonnie-centric story. After killing Marshall Travers in self-defense, she meets loner Derek Coburn in a rather unlikely fashion.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Comments please!
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
October 30, 2003
She had killed a man. She had to go back there. She had to admit what she had done.
But she couldn’t. Not right now. She couldn’t go back to Oakdale. She had done the world a public service, ridding it of the sick, twisted man who had raped her mother.
She shouldn’t feel so bad. She shouldn’t feel so scared and ashamed.
She shouldn’t ... she shouldn’t … she shouldn’t …
She was going crazy. She was going completely around the bend and there was no way to stop it. She couldn’t remember in her hazy brain why she had even been in that hotel room in the first place. She didn’t think she had walked in there with the intent to kill a man. She hadn’t expected to walk away with the blood of his sins staining her own soul.
But she had killed him. She knew it the minute he toppled out the window. He had given the first blow and she had delivered the final one.
They would be looking for her. The cops; her mother; the people who believed Marshall Travers had been just another innocent man, wrongfully accused of a crime he didn’t commit. The worst part of it all for her was that she would have to look into his daughter’s eyes and tell Sarah that she had killed the girl’s father.
If she was religious, she would have prayed about now or maybe made the sign of the cross but she wasn’t so she kept driving as fast as she could, even as a heavy rain fall pelted the roof of her car and her windshield and made visibility nearly zero.
She just kept driving, hoping someone could save her from the madness she was feeling now.
XoXoXo
Hiding out was no fun for anyone, even a man as solitary as he was. He always kept a good distance from people, had learned the hard way that getting close to anyone would only bring you regret and heartache in the end.
Still, he had been holed up in this cabin for weeks, letting his hair and beard grow out until he must have looked like a bad imitation of the late, great Bob Marley. There was no running water so he had to bathe in the freezing cold lake which he could only brave two or three times a week. The less time he spent out in the open, the better.
He had only his books to keep him company and figured that eventually he would go crazy from the solitude and the utter emptiness of his world. But hiding out was a necessity for now. Just until he could figure out what to do with himself next. And that might take some time because though he was an intelligent man, even he couldn’t figure a way out of this one. The pickle he was in, as his late grandmother would have said.
He was sitting on his bed, trying to read Long Walk to Freedom for seemingly the five hundredth time but his thoughts were light years away.
However, he was abruptly brought back to the present as he heard a loud splashing noise along the river outside his place. His first thought was bears. It was after all the wilderness out here. But then his mind took a more sinister turn, thinking in paranoia that they had found him. That the splashing sound was some kind of diversion technique to lure him out of hiding.
He grabbed his ever-present rifle off the broken down wooden table and blew out the three kerosene lamps in the cabin before edging towards the back door. He slowly drew the door open and stepped outside. Complete silence reigned now. Still, he didn’t trust in it so he continued walking, skulking really, around the cabin until he reached the sagging front porch.
He couldn’t make out anything really in the cold, damp darkness but still moved forward. That’s when he noticed the hulking shape of a car slipping under the water of the river.
“What the –“ he started to say when he broke off, hearing the light shuffling of feet behind him. He whipped around just in time to see the figure of a person drop to their knees and then slump face down in the mud.
Sensing somehow that he was no longer in immediate danger, he set his rifle down and moved over to the petite figure. He slowly reached out and felt a mass of wet, tangled hair before he rolled over the person.
He realized that he was looking down at the unconscious figure of a woman. A woman with dark, now mottled skin and a huge, bleeding gash in her forehead. He looked back towards the river and noted that the car was utterly submerged now; in fact, it was no longer visible.
“How in the hell did you end up in this mess, woman?” he asked the unconscious figure, peeling off his denim jacket and settling it over her shoulders. “Where the hell did you come from?”
There was no reply just as he had suspected there wouldn’t be.
Just then the heavy rain from earlier before began to fall again and without giving it too much thought, he scooped up the limp figure of the woman into his arms and carried her to the shelter of his cabin.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading. I hope to have chapter 1 up very soon!