Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee and I don't own "A Christmas Carol."
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine
Spoilers: Completely AU, so none.
Word Count: ~11,500
Summary: The one in which Sue is Ebenezer Scrooge and Kurt and Blaine plus a few ghosts remind her what it means to be human. A Christmas Carol/Glee crossover.
Author’s Note: First of all, thanks to the amazing
judearaya for her wonderful beta work!I have had this idea in my head for quite some time. Sue just seems like the perfect Scrooge, doesn't she? So I've started playing around with it, re-reading Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" (you will recognise some of the lines) and watching the Muppets film version a number of times (some lines from that one might also have made their way into this story. I'm not even apologising for that.)
There are some things I would like to point out, but as they are slightly spoilery for the story itself, you can either read them now or come back here and read them after you're finished the story.
1) Of course, Kurt is Bob Cratchit and Blaine is his husband. Now, the story is still set in the mid-19th century, which leaves us with a slight anachronism, doesn't it? So you can either assume that this is a present day/future alternate universe that hasn't seen any kind of technological progress since the 1840s, OR you can see this as an alternate universe in which same-sex marriage was quite common in the 19th century. I'll leave that to you.
2) We all know "A Christmas Carol," correct? So everyone who reads this is aware of what happens? As in, brief character death? No one actually dies, though, we all know that, too, right? Just making sure. Because heartbreak is part of this story, but it will all be all right in the end, because that's how Mr. Dickens wrote it and I'm just copying him here.
Okay. So. This is where I shamelessly rip off Charles Dickens' most famous Christmas story. Make yourself a cup of tea, put on some Christmas music, and enjoy reading. Happy Holidays, everyone!
A Glee Christmas Carol
Rod Remington was dead: to begin with. No, really, he was. A lot of important people had put their signature on a piece of paper that proved it. Sue Sylvester was one of those people. And Sue might have been a lot of things, but she wasn't a liar. So, old Rod was dead as a door-nail.
I really don't know why door-nails are said to be particularly dead, and not coffin-nails or some such thing. But since people seem to have agreed that a door-nail is the deadest of all nails, I'm not going to argue, because seriously, that's not the point of this story. Also, the expression has apparently been around since the 14th century, so where would we be if I started questioning it now. Maybe it has something to do with alliteration, or maybe the answer is a lot more complicated. Who knows. Anyway, I'm going to repeat it again (for emphasis): Rod Remington was dead as a door-nail.
Sue knew that he was dead, of course. They had been partners for many years. Sue had been the co-owner of the business, his only friend, his only mourner - even if she had never really mourned him. After all, his death meant he didn't claim his part of the profit any more.
Now, there is no doubt that Rod Remington was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wondrous can come of the story I am going to relate.
Sue never painted out old Remington's name. It stood, through all those years above the office door: Sylvester and Remington. Because that was the name of the business.
She was a mean one, Sue Sylvester. No one ever saw her smile: she was bitter, ungenerous, strict, and no kind word ever slipped from her lips. Solitary and cold, she never needed anyone and only sneered at those who offered her a friendly greeting on her way to work, where she was the first one to arrive at the office each day and the last one to leave each night. Not even Christmas could soften her features and thaw her soul. Her entire being was made of ice; her words and her attitude towards those who came in contact with her was no less cutting than the cold winds of a winter storm.
Sue was well aware of the fact that people were afraid of her and that was just the way she liked it. She had spent many long years accumulating her fortune, protecting it with everything she had and building her reputation. Success was her only friend and ambition her constant companion. She wanted nothing else from life.
And that was how Christmas found her – sitting at her desk in her dark, damp office, the snow falling heavily outside. All those who were lucky enough to have a home to go to were on their way to their loved ones.
Not her clerk, though. She could see him through the door working at his smaller desk; she looked up every once in a while to ensure that he was indeed still working. Not that he had ever given her any reason to doubt that he was anything but diligent. Still, Sue trusted no one.
It wasn't long before the clerk lifted his head again, putting down his work and looked over at her. “I believe it is closing time, Miss Sylvester,” he said.
Sue turned toward the fireplace where the smallest possible fire was barely burning, giving off just enough heat to prevent them both from being frozen to their seats. One look at the clock on the mantelpiece told her he was right, and she heaved a sigh.
“Fine, Porcelain. Go on home, then. I'll see you tomorrow morning at eight.”
The clerk rose to his feet, walking over to her desk where he stopped to look down at her in disbelief. “My name is Kurt, as you very well know. Also, tomorrow is Christmas,” he stated, obviously expecting Sue to respond to that in some way.
Sue merely shrugged her shoulders and folded her hands on the table. “I am well aware of that.”
“But, Miss Sylvester... surely you don't expect me to come in on Christmas?”
“Do not tell me you want the entire day, tomorrow,” Sue replied.
“I don't think it's customary to work on Christmas,” Kurt replied. “All the other businesses will be closed as well. Who would you be doing business with?”
Sue threw up her hands in surrender and sighed. “Very well. I suppose you must have the entire day, then. But it is not fair, let me tell you that. I shall have to pay you an entire day's wages for nothing. Be here at seven the day after to make up for it or I will give your job to someone who is willing to actually do it.”
Kurt gave her a cold look and turned to go before he seemed to remember something. “Oh, one more thing,” he said. “Will Schuester was here earlier to ask for donations for the children's homeless shelter. I am passing it on my way home, so I could stop by to give him your answer. What do you want me to tell him?”
“To go bother someone else,” Sue replied. “I have no interest in giving my hard earned money to a handful of useless brats.”
“You could afford it, you know,” Kurt pointed out. “Easily. You could give them a Christmas they would never forget. You could build another shelter to take in those who are still living on the streets. I don't get how you can sit on all that money and just ignore how much good you could do with it.”
“Don't you dare criticise me,” Sue said, rising from her chair. “If they want money, I suggest they work for it.”
“They’re just children. Besides, I think they are a little preoccupied trying not to die,” Kurt said, his voice no less icy then Sue's.
“Let them die, if they want,” Sue said. “Decrease the surplus population.”
Kurt didn't even dignify this with a response, merely giving her a haughty and disgusted look before going to find his old battered coat. A coat that still looked a lot better than the clothes most of Sue's business associates were wearing to official meetings. Kurt Hummel was always well dressed, even if most of his clothes were worn thin. He found ways of repairing them, making them seem like more than they were. Sue didn't like that about him. What right had he to be so vain, trying to make himself look like he were someone important? Being her office clerk ought to be enough for him.
She tried to remember why she had ever hired him. She had liked his ambition, she supposed, but that was the only thing about the man she could stand. Then again, there wasn't really anyone in this world that she liked. So, Porcelain was just as good of a clerk as anyone and as long as he wasn’t asking for a raise or a day off, he did good work.
“Merry Christmas,” he said looking back at her, his hand already on the door knob.
“Merry Christmas, indeed,” Sue snorted. “What do you have to be merry about? You're poor enough.”
“And who's fault is that?” Kurt asked almost sweetly, giving her one of those smiles that she abhorred. “And if that's your way of thinking, then why aren't you a little merrier, rich as you are?”
With that, he was gone and Sue finished up her work in peace before putting out the lights and starting on her way home.
It was still snowing and the wind was icy, but Sue hardly noticed it. The cold lived in her bones and had become so much a part of her very being, she had forgotten how to shiver long ago.
Sue lived in an old house not far from the office, a house she had, just like half of the firm, inherited from Rod Remington. It had been a family home once, so it was rather big and must have looked warm and inviting once. Sue, however, kept most of the spare rooms locked and forgotten; the façade was crumbling and grey now. It looked as gloomy and worn-out as, no doubt, the very pit of Sue Sylvester's soul.
As Sue walked up the front steps, searching for the key in her pocket, her eyes fell upon the knocker on the door. There was nothing special about this knocker, except that it was big and old and more than a little ugly. Sue saw it every day, every morning when she locked the door behind her and every night when she returned here to have her solitary dinner and go to sleep. It was just an ordinary knocker, rusty from disuse because Sue never had any visitors.
And yet this night, as she fit the key into the lock and started to turn it, all of a sudden it wasn't the knocker she was seeing. It was Rod Remington's face, staring at her from where it was sticking out of the door; spectral and too small and with an unearthly shine to it, brighter than skin, paler than metal. Taken aback, Sue let go of the key and shook her head to clear her vision, and sure enough, when she looked again, it was just a plain old knocker.
“Don't be silly,” she said to herself. “You're just seeing things because you’ve been working too hard. That's all.”
Still, she could not help but inspect every room in the house before sitting down to dinner. Angry at herself for being so easily frightened, she left off half the lights and built a fire even smaller than the one in the office. It was childish to be afraid of the dark. Besides, candles and coal were expensive. She wasn't going to waste any during this darkest time of the year.
After her usual meal of stale bread and cheese, she wrapped herself in her favourite nightgown and watched the shadows moving on the wall, gathering up what little heat she could from the fireplace. She was going to go to bed soon, very soon, just another minute...
She woke with a start as the bell above the mantelpiece started ringing. It was an old, disused bell that communicated with some locked chamber in another part of the house, a remnant of days gone by when this house had been a home to people other and less lonely than Sue Sylvester. She sat up, her heart beating faster in her chest as she found, much to her dismay, that she was not sleeping and this was not a dream.
Clutching the arms of her chair she felt her eyes widen with horror as more bells in the house started pealing and then suddenly a light appeared, cold and blue, just a little to her left. Soon it was filling the entire room; she had to close her eyes to stop it from blinding her.
The ringing stopped when the light was at its brightest, just as it started fading away again, and when she dared open her eyes finally, the chair next to hers was occupied with the pale, ghost-like form of a man.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“You know who I am,” the spectre responded.
“No,” Sue gasped. “It can't be. You are dead.”
“Of course I am now,” it – he – replied. “But in life I was your partner Rod Remington.”
“You were not,” Sue insisted. “This isn't true. This isn't happening. This can't be happening.”
“You don't believe I'm here?” Rod asked.
“Of course not,” Sue said.
“But you can see me. Why do you doubt what you see?” He turned his face to look at her, his eyes colourless and empty and tortured.
“Because there are no such things as ghosts,” Sue explained. “I am probably just having a nightmare, or I ate something wrong. Although I must say that I would have expected my mind to come up with a better hallucination than you.”
“Sue,” the ghost said. “I am here, and you better believe it. Because what I came to tell you is important. Your life may depend on it.”
“My life?” Sue shook her head in disbelief. “Do not try to convince me that you are here to help me. You never helped anyone but yourself when you were alive.”
“And that is why I am now forced to wear these,” Rod said with a sad smile, lifting his arms. And Sue saw, for the first time, the heavy chains wound about his wrists, his chest, even his legs. She shuddered.
“Where do they come from?” she asked. “Can't you get rid of them? They must be dragging you down horribly.”
“They do,” Rod sighed. “That is why I'm here. To right some wrongs, correct some of my worst mistakes, and earn a peaceful rest, free of the chains I forged for myself in life.”
“What do you mean, you forged them yourself?” Sue felt cold all of a sudden, a feeling she had almost forgotten, and terror seemed to seize her heart. “You were a good businessman, an honest man. Well, you weren't all that bad. You never did anything very wrong.”
“Listen to me, Sue,” Rod said. “My time here is almost over. And I must tell you this as part of my penance. I came here to warn you.”
“Warn me of what?” Fighting the impulse to run, she forced herself to stay in her chair. She did not want to see this terrible, tormented, chained shadow of her old partner sitting here and talking to her. This wasn't real. It couldn't be. And yet she couldn't doubt any of it either.
“You are busy forging your own chains, Sue Sylvester, and since your life is already longer than mine, chances are that yours will be even heavier than the ones I'm wearing. But not all hope is lost for you. You have yet a chance to escape my fate, to turn your life around.”
“What do I have to do? Tell me, please,” Sue begged, cold sweat breaking out over her skin.
“You will be haunted by three ghosts,” Rod told her, his chains rattling as he started to fade. “Go with them. Listen to them. Change. And escape my fate.”
“No,” Sue cried. “No more ghosts, please, there must be another way...”
Rod had almost completely disappeared by now, nothing more than a grey shadow against the faded blue of the chair. “Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls One,” he cried in an eerily thin voice, and then he was gone and Sue was alone.
She shook it off quickly, the fear and the feeling of ghosts, because that was what Sue Sylvester did. Nothing frightened her. To prove her point, she went straight to bed. If the ghost would want to talk to her, it would bloody well have to wait until she was awake.
Which turned out to be at exactly one o'clock.
There was a bell ringing again and a white light filling her room, blinding her even through the drawn bed curtains, and Sue immediately sat up, a chill running down her spine as she saw something moving by the foot of her bed.
“Who's there?” she asked, trying to make her voice sound as firm and commanding as ever while, in truth, she was trembling all over. No need for the intruder to know that, though.
When no reply came, she reached out carefully with shaking hands and drew back the curtains. A young woman stood before her, her skin dark yet almost translucent and her black hair tied into a ponytail.
“Rise and shine,” the woman said, putting her hands on her hips and grinning at her. “I hear you've been a very bad girl lately.”
Sue opened and closed her mouth, trying to speak, but not really finding the right words to say to this spectre who had appeared in her bedroom in the middle of the night. “Who are you?” she finally croaked, dreading the answer, but having to know anyway.
“What do I look like?” the ghost woman said. “I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past. But you can call me Santana, to save time. I was never really one for formalities.”
“What do you want with me?” Sue wanted to know.
“I kinda need to show you a few things, so if you would be so kind and just take my hand...” the ghost said matter-of-factly, holding out a thin, shining hand.
“What kinds of things?” Sue asked, staring at the hand offered to her, reluctant to touch it.
“God, I’m used to haunting stupid people, but you're really not the brightest,” the ghost sighed. “The past, of course. Now hurry up a little, two of my associates are already waiting for you, there's no time to lose.”
And before Sue could protest, the ghost called Santana had grabbed her hand and then they were up in the air, rushing through a sea of red and yellow clouds, spinning and spinning and Sue felt like she was going to faint or be sick any second. None of this could be real.
When she came to her senses, she found herself standing in an old familiar room, a room she hadn't seen in decades, a room she had sworn to never enter again as long as she lived.
“What is this?” she asked, feeling a little frightened and a lot angry. “Why did you bring me here?”
“To show you what you once had,” Santana explained. “Do you remember this?”
Sue nodded, focusing on her breathing. Of course she remembered. Even if she didn't want to.
It was Christmas, clearly. There was the tree, the poorly decorated tree with no presents under it and there was the old fireplace, a warm and roaring fire heating up the room and there...
There was the reason she had never wanted to return.
The reason was sitting by the fire, a book in her lap, looking at the pictures and tracing the outlines of her favourite ones with her fingers. She looked so young and so happy. She had always looked so happy when they had been here, in this room. It had been their hiding place, a place to hide away from a world that could never understand them.
“Jean,” Sue whispered, tears welling up behind her eyes.
“She was your sister,” Santana said.
“She was my family,” Sue pointed out. “Our parents were never around.”
“She was all you had,” Santana added. “Oh, and there you are.” She pointed toward the door, where a younger version of Sue Sylvester had just entered, walking over to her sister and sitting down beside her on the worn-out rug.
“Merry Christmas, Jeannie,” young Sue said to her sister.
“Merry Christmas, Sue,” her sister said, handing her the book she had been looking at. “Will you read to me, please?”
“Of course I will,” young Sue answered, kissing her sister's forehead and taking the book from her hands.
“You spent all your Christmases alone with her, didn't you?” Santana asked as the two little girls curled up in front of the fire, one reading and the other listening, a picture so serene and peaceful it hurt Sue to watch.
“I never cared that it was just the two of us,” Sue explained. “It didn't matter that our parents weren't around. We were used to it. We were a family. We never needed anyone else.”
“What happened?” Santana asked.
“Life happened,” Sue said. “And life isn't fair. Please, take me away from here. I don't want to see this. It hurts too much.”
Santana looked at her and for the first time, Sue thought there was something like pity in the ghost's eyes. “I have more to show you before we are done, I'm afraid,” she said.
“Then get on with it,” Sue insisted. “Anything but this, please.”
Santana nodded, taking her hand as time started spinning and whirling around them, but this time, Sue was prepared.
“For the record, I am sorry,” Santana said. “I am not enjoying this any more than you are. But you need to be reminded.”
“Reminded of what?” Sue asked, but before Santana could answer, scenes started to unfold before her eyes. As much as she didn’t want to see any of it, Sue couldn’t look away, couldn’t even blink.
She saw the two girls from the fire walking down the street, rounding a corner, being faced with an angry crowd that threw rocks at them, yelling words like “freak” and “get away from us” at her sister. She watched the girls hide in a dark alley, waiting until it was safe to go home again. A moment later, they were back in the old room, opening a letter from their parents that would only tell them that they wouldn't come home just yet. Christmas after Christmas flashed by, the girls getting older and older, one of them getting weaker and weaker, and then, finally, she saw a funeral, finally her parents, dressed in black and standing there like they had any right to be there, and a young Sue, broken and crying, bent over her sister's small coffin and knowing that the world would never be right again.
“Enough,” Sue yelled, sobbing, trying to wind her way out of Santana's grip. “Why torture me like this? Please, just let me go home. Please, I can't stand... I never wanted... It took me so long to forget...”
“Oh, but you never did,” Santana answered. “That's part of the problem, isn't it? To be so young and to have to face all of that alone... How could you ever forget the way the world treated you? The answer is that you didn't. They say it only makes you stronger, but it didn't, did it? It broke you.”
“No,” Sue cried. “No, it did not. Did you actually watch any of that? The world is cruel. It's cold and heartless. I knew that even when I was a child. I learned to fight it, is all. I learned to not let it break me.” She shook her head, closing her eyes. She had seen enough and she struggled against the ghost-woman's grip on her. “Why do you have to make me go through this again, you demon?”
“I know this is hard for you.” The ghost squeezed Sue's hand lightly, not allowing her to break free just yet. “But you can hardly blame me for any of this. All of it happened, it's your past. It's part of who you are. And there's more. You know what I'm going to show you next, don't you?”
Sue didn't answer right away, just wiped at her eyes with her free hand. “Go on, then,” she finally said. “If you must.”
Santana nodded, and the world started spinning again.
Sue in her mid-twenties, sitting in the upstairs office bent over columns of numbers while everyone else was celebrating Christmas downstairs. Sue about to turn thirty, walking home through the snow on Christmas eve, not even noticing the carollers on the street corners, walking right past the beggars in their rags that were much too thin for December. Sue with the hair at her temples turning grey, her eyes cold and unfeeling as she moved into the bigger office days before Christmas, the one that had been her partner's until a few days ago. Sue behind her desk, telling her clerk to get those eviction notices posted before the end of the week, disregarding his protests when he told her they would turn people out of their homes just in time for Christmas.
It didn't take more than a few minutes before Sue found herself back in the present on the street outside her house, but she felt so much older all of a sudden, as if she had lived her life all over again. Suddenly she was tired; bone-deep exhausted, wanting to lie down where she was standing and go to sleep. Maybe it would help her forget again. She had never wanted to remember. The past was the past, why let it get to you? She had never cared before.
Santana let go of her hand, taking a step back. “I think this concludes our brief trip,” she said. “Just remember that it wasn't always like this. You knew what kindness was, once. You learned it from the kindest soul you ever met. Ask yourself what she would see if she could look at you now. Would she be proud? Would she even recognise you? Just think about it. I have to go now.” And with another blinding flash of light, she was gone and Sue found herself back in her bed, still shaking, openly crying now; she didn't stop until she heard the ringing of bells again.
She knew what that meant now, of course she did. And she'd be lying if she said she hadn't been waiting. No, not waiting, more like expecting. Dreading. She didn't want any more of this, she couldn't even really believe any of this was happening at all, despite the fact that she had seen it, she had been there. She only wished this was over. And yet she knew with an unidentifiable certainty that this was inevitable, that there would be no escape. She knew a second ghost was coming and that she'd have to go with them. What choice did she have but to endure this until the sun rose, chasing away this nightmare she found herself in.
Still, she wouldn't be Sue Sylvester if she just went without a fight.
Knowing the ghost was already in her bedroom, she turned her face to the side from where she had buried it into the pillow and closed her eyes. “Just leave me alone,” she shouted. “I don't want to see any more.”
“Of course you do. You just don't know it yet.”
The voice sounded less cold than that of the first spirit, and yet Sue was even more careful after everything that had already happened tonight. “Believe me, I do know. I guess since you’re already dead there’s no point in threatening to kill you. Still, I would thank you to just leave me in peace and go back to wherever you came from.”
“No,” the ghost said and Sue finally looked up. It was another young woman, tall and blonde, with a kind smile on her face. “I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present,” she introduced herself.
“You don't have a name?” Sue asked. “Your friend who had so much fun ripping my heart out at least paid me the courtesy of telling me her real name.”
“You can call me Brittany,” the ghost said. “And I'm sorry if my friend upset you. I'm sure she didn't mean to. It's just that sometimes you have to hurt before you can heal. Follow me now, please.”
“Where?” Sue asked. She knew that arguing was pointless. She might as well suffer through this night and start pushing everything to the back of her mind again tomorrow.
“It's Christmas,” the Brittany Ghost explained. “Let's go see the magic.”
“There is no such thing as magic,” Sue snorted.
“People also say there’s no such things as ghosts, don’t they?” Brittany countered. “Take my hand.”
Sue did as she was told, suddenly intent on getting this over and done with. A second later, Sue found herself standing outside her house. It was day, people were hurrying down the street through the snow that hadn’t stopped falling, smiles on their faces and a friendly greeting on their lips for everyone they passed.
“Merry Christmas,” Brittany said, smiling at Sue.
“I know what Christmas looks like,” Sue spat out. “I have to see it every year, all of this nonsense. This is a waste of my time.”
“Well, if all of the city celebrating isn't enough to convince you, let's have a look at a few very special people,” Brittany suggested. “I have the perfect idea.” She took Sue's hand again. Another second later they were standing on a smaller street with smaller houses, all of them rather run-down and shabby. Sue shuddered.
“What did you bring me here for? What could I possibly see in a place like this that could convince me that Christmas is anything but depressing and superfluous?”
Brittany pointed at the house right in front of them, a small stone building with a tiny front yard and a blue door with chipped-off paint. “This,” she said, “is you clerk’s house. This is where Kurt Hummel lives.”
Sue hesitated, and Brittany gave her a friendly push toward the window. “Go ahead, have a look. They can't see you.”
“They?” Sue asked. She had always imagined that Porcelain lived alone. He couldn't have a family; he couldn't support them, not with the little she paid him.
Brittany just kept nodding at her encouragingly and Sue stepped up to the window, peering inside. And, sure enough, there was an entire family in there. She couldn't see Kurt anywhere, but there were three children playing in the corner by the fire and a dark-haired man standing at the stove, stirring something in a large pot.
“Who are all those people?” Sue wanted to know.
“Kurt's husband and their children, of course,” Brittany explained in a voice that indicated she had expected Sue to know at least this much about her only permanent employee. “Didn't you know he had children? Or a husband?”
“He never said.”
“Did you ever ask?”
Before Sue could answer, she heard footsteps down the street and a clear, familiar voice humming a simple Christmas tune. Kurt.
Sue watched him as he approached the house, a spring in his step that she had never seen before, and then he opened the door and Sue pressed her face to the window again as he stepped inside, calling out to his family.
The three children, two girls and one boy as Sue could see now, immediately jumped up to run over to him, throwing themselves into his waiting arms with cries of joy. “Dad, Dad, Dad,” they shouted. “You're home.”
“I'm home,” Kurt laughed, kissing all three of them and ruffling their hair before sending them off to play with their toys again. He crossed the room then, walking over to the man at the stove – his husband – who had turned around and was watching him with a warm smile on his face.
Sue felt like she was intruding on a private moment – which, technically, she was – but she couldn't tear her eyes away. Kurt – her cold, distant, clerk with the horrible attitude – reached out and cupped his husband's cheek with one hand, the expression on his face so loving and tender she almost couldn't believe this was the same man she had seen in the office every day for the past few years. This was the same man who seemed to live and breathe sarcasm and who was actually the only person she knew to ever stand up to her.
She watched the dark-haired man lean forward and kiss Kurt, watched the happy, almost blissful expression on Kurt's face as the two wrapped their arms around each other and just held on as if this was all they ever wanted from life.
They were happy, she realised all of a sudden. What she was seeing was happiness, and the concept was so foreign to her, she wasn't sure she could really understand it any more.
“Do you want to go?” Brittany asked.
Sue shook her head slowly, and before she could really think about it, she had opened her mouth to speak. “No, I want to stay a while, if that's possible. I would like to stay, please.” Her own words surprised her, but she wasn't about to take them back. There was something about this scene that made her want to be a part of it a little longer, even if she was just an invisible bystander. A witness. She felt herself drawn in without knowing why, and while the feeling scared her significantly, she didn't feel like fighting it. Which scared her even more, when she thought about it.
“Then go on inside,” Brittany encouraged her.
“I can't,” Sue said. “They'll see me.”
“They can't see us,” Brittany assured her, and, taking her hand, pulled her right through the wall.
PART II