Conscience

[Ali_]

Type of story: One shot

Main Characters: Maddie/Ric

BTTB rating: A

does story include spoilers: no

Is story being proof read: yes

Any warnings: Language and mild sexual content

summary: One off story about Maddy gone over to the dark side and the issues she has with her fathers death and how it affects her relationships with her family and friends. Not quite the Maddy we all know a love but a psychological perspective on how things might have been! This is for my best friend who lost a parent and I had to witness the fallout which was inspiration for this story

This is a one off story that doesn't relate to my other fan fiction story (I will get around to it don't worry!) and it's out of character but it's sort of like Maddy gone over to the dark side. Writing is like an itch for me and I just had to get this out or it would drive me crazy.

Let me know what you think it's pretty random. This is for my best friend Steph who lost a parent and I had to watch the aftermath.

“What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness.” (Freidrich Neitzsche)

*************************************

It was wrong.

She often wondered if she would even be bothering if it was something she knew people would accept.

She felt bad even thinking it but she had learnt long ago not to dwell on her conscience, she had adapted to the cruelty of life and found it easy to hate her actions and yet continue them anyway without much difficulty.

Life would not seem to have been obviously cruel to Matilda Hunter but she had had to deal with death at a young age and lost most of her childhood innocence because of it. Her father who she looked up to and leaned on died and her naivety and allusion of safety died along with him.

She cried openly and lashed out at others grieving the same loss, she moaned and was selfish in her destructive tendencies that she made life even more miserable for those around her. She didn’t mean to but as the baby of the family she didn’t know any other way. She felt terrible for doing it but it seemed impossible to stop inflicting her pain on others. She had lost any motivation to be a good person because it didn’t seem that it did any good when people like her mother lost the man she loved and broke down silently.

Of course she still had her morals and for her father’s sake she did try to curb her wild behaviour but he wasn’t around any longer and without his physical presence it got harder and harder with her twin brother following the same the path she was. She wanted to be as strong and as kind as her mother was but she felt like the world owed her so much for taking her father and she owed it nothing.

Eventually she and her brother were sent to boarding school and although she characteristically protested the decision it was a small relief to be able to leave so their family wouldn’t have to be burdened with them anymore and she wouldn’t feel bad for the way she was. Her family was her conscience personified and without it she felt so much freedom she actually felt slightly happy.

Years passed and boarding school taught her cruel lessons about popularity, loneliness and independence that she rose above and somehow flourished with. She missed her family but she never missed her conscience.

Then one day Matilda found Henry lying beaten and bloodied on the front steps of her dorm, she had been out playing sport when she found him crying and huddled near a bush.

She ran to him but the attackers hadn’t finished. They came back to finish the job and didn’t seem to care that someone was watching. They kicked him and the sound of it made Matilda feel sick. She screamed and screamed at the top of her lungs until someone can running and the bullies finally ran in the opposite direction.

She screamed for all the hate she felt for herself and for how life had turned out, she screamed for the person she could have been and she screamed out of fear of losing someone else she loved.

The fear was crippling and even after Henry returned to school after a day in hospital every time she saw him the sick dread welled in her stomach and it took months to calm.

The day Henry was beaten she changed slightly, her conscience began to make itself heard again and although Matilda found it easy to silence it, she didn’t. She felt better and happier for trying to be nicer and more compassionate because she realised there was more than one way to lose those you love. Until Henry was beaten she was a complete bitch to him, they stuck together when they first entered boarding school but Matilda hadn’t said a kind word to him since that first week of school until she visited him in hospital.

She wasn’t sure why it had been that way but probably because he was all that was there to remind her of her childhood, her father and the life she missed.

Matilda had lost Henry even before he was beaten and she didn't want it to happen again.

************************************************

Matilda put on her clothes silently in the dark.

“I should get going mum will freak if she finds me gone.”

“Wont Luke wonder where you are?”

“Probably.”

Then she left, there was no real conversation when she came over to Ric's. Maybe a hello before and a few words after but it wasn’t about a relationship. Sleeping together seemed to exist so separately from their friendship for both of them that it was like they were living parallel lives. It was exciting but somewhere deep down somewhere Matilda couldn’t acknowledge it was slowing eating away at her.

Matilda was dating Lucas and he was in love with her, she thought she was in love with him too but she realised she couldn’t be if she was betraying him most nights of the week without much consideration. She did care about him but she held on to people from her past so tightly that she found it impossible to find love with new people in her life. She found it hard to trust people and she didn't understand how Luke could love her when she didn't even love herself so she was suspicious of it. Besides, it wasn’t about Lucas it was about her.

Ric was dating Cassie who also happened to be Matilda’s best friend and although Ric loved Cassie genuinely he didn’t stop Matilda’s first advances and happily carried on with the affair long after. Matilda knew it was because Ric didn’t think he was good enough for Cassie and he somehow resented both Cassie and himself for the way he felt. Sleeping with Matilda was something he thought would never happen because she seemed even more ethereal and out of his league than Cassie not only because she was beautiful but because she was his best friend. It was a way for him to somehow prove to himself her was worth Cassie even though he was cheating with Matilda behind her back but somehow the logic worked in his head, at least for a while.

It was fulfilling for Matilda to be with him because ever since she lost her father and then most of her siblings moved away she was forever searching for something more in her life, something to fill in the gaps. She had lost people she loved to others and to different parts of the country even thought she swore it would never happen again. It was stupid to think she would never hurt again but the hope of it kept her sane. Now her sanity came from hurting others. That way she wouldn't be so alone and isolated in her misery.

Being with Ric meant she harmed others around her even though they weren’t aware of it and it somehow seemed to even the score in her mind, why shouldn’t she do something so harmful and wrong when she had suffered harm and injustice? She had never quit being the spoilt brat.

It was a Wednesday and she was lying next to Ric, sweat stuck to the bed sheets and she tried to calm her heart beat that pounded around her body, that's when it finally it ended.

“This has to stop Maddy.”

“Why? Am I boring you?”

“Of course not but this is wrong.”

“You only just realised that? We’ve been doing this for two months and the morality of it all didn’t cross your mind?”

“Well if it ever crossed yours you never let on.”

“What Luke and Cassie don’t know wont hurt them.”

“I can’t do this because I’m ashamed to even look at Cassie anymore and I don’t even know how this all started.”

“It started with me getting naked and ended just a minute ago with you pulling out.”

“Maddy you’ve changed, you were so sweet when we first met and now you seem so distant. Don’t you care you’re cheating on Luke?”

Maddy sighed, it was more out of frustration than guilt.

“Anything I have done you’ve done too.”

“Yeah but at least I finally feel bad about it! I wasn’t thinking with my head but now I am my principles can’t let this go on. It’s not fair to them.”

“Life’s not fair Ric! My father was taken from me when I needed him most and I’ve had to deal with it!”

“I know it’s hard losing a parent but that was something that was out of your hands, this isn’t, you have control over some things in life and what you do with that control makes the difference. Cassie lost her parents, I’ve lost mine and Luke lost his mother we’ve all suffered not just you. Stop being so conceited and look beyond your own grief.”

“I can do what the hell I want just because you finally decided to do the right thing doesn’t mean you can start preaching to me like you’re a saint!”

“Do you love me?”

“What?”

It came out of the blue she almost choked on her own saliva.

“Do you love me?”

She hesitated.

“No.”

“Not even as a friend?”

She already knew the answer to that but she didn't want to seemw weak.

“I don’t know.”

“I love you Maddy, I love you as a friend and I shouldn’t have done any of this with you because you’re a fragile, insecure little girl playing the cold hard bitch and I knew that but somehow I thought if I slept with you I could change it. I just didn’t want to see you like this anymore it was stupid but it came out of a caring place. Why did you even bother sleeping with me?”

Maddy felt the unusua sensation of tears pricking at her eyes, it was so subconscious she didn't even realise she was crying until she felt her cheeks were wet. If she was going to be honest with herself she wanted to tell Ric how she felt, how robbed she felt and how she didn't know how to cope with such emotions without lashing out like she had done all her life. She had never learnt or matured even though she felt so aged.

She decided to confess.

“I slept with you because I could. I’ve tried for so long to erase anything from my life that reminded me of my father because it just hurt too much, I got my goodness and my morals and love from him so I’ve tried to block them out and move on. The less like I was when he was around, the further away his death and the pain it caused seems.

“Has it worked?”

“My conscience is still there even though I ignore it, in fact anytime it tries to speak I do the exact opposite or something stupid to distract myself from thinking it’s there. It makes me feel like my dad is watching and as long as I live it’s always going to be there.”

“Maddy you obviously haven’t actually processed his death properly because otherwise you’d learn to embrace memories of him and appreciate what you’ve had not mourn over what you’ve lost. You had a dad even if only for a short while and that’s a blessing even if it may not seem it. You are his legacy why don’t you try making him proud? Don’t run from your pain, pain is life and you wouldn’t be human or feel happiness if it wasn’t there.”

Maddy laughed, a genuine laugh that felt like a weight had been lifted slightly off her shoulders.

“For a guy who acts dumb and fails most of his exams you actually make some sense.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t think I’m going to start being nicer to people or start fixing things.”

“Just as long as you fix yourself.”

“I’m not a car you can repair Ric, plus I don’t trust your mechanic skills anyway.”

Ric rolled his eyes.

“Take care Maddy.”

Maddy slipped on her clothes and climbed out of the window.

“See you at school Ric.”

*************************************

She didn't see Ric at school because the same night she packed up her things and left a note for her mum. She couldn't learn who she was or start over again in the stifling atmosphere and small community of Summer Bay, she'd have to see all the mistakes she had made every day.

Dear Lucas

You wont understand why I'm leaving and you don't have to, I just want to thankyou for seeing something in me that I'm only starting to uncover myself. You made me feel worth something even if you didn't know that and I'm only sorry I can't love you the way you love me, at least not yet. You're going to do great things with your life Luke and one day I'll be back to see it.

Maddy

The note for Lucas was the hardest she had to write, being honest wasn't an option but she was at least truthful about how she felt now even if she didn't confess her betrayal.

She didn't know what she'd do, where she'd go or how she'd live once she had left but she knew it was going to be a better life than the one she was existing with now.

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