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The Trade	By : sandyl666 Category: +1 through F > Coraline Views: 11933 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: Coraline book-verse is owned by Neil Gaiman and part of movie-verse is owned by Henry Selick, I own nothing. I make nothing whatsoever by writing and posting this on.

Chapter List
- 24
- 25
- 26
Disclaimer: If Coraline and its plot/characters belonged to me instead of Neil Gaiman or Henry Selick, I would, uh, have made it creepier. If that was even possible. And explained why the eyes of the ghost children didn't have needle holes in them if Bel sewed buttons into them.
And why didn't she eat their eyes? He/She just conveniently left them aside so he/she could use them in her game with Coraline. Amazing coincidence.
Chapter 25: Restored

Coraline didn't know if she'd ever felt as tired. Her limbs ached, her head hurt, her eyes were red and puffy, and she'd never felt more down than she did at that moment.
She hadn't slept a wink.
It was literally the crack of dawn when she left the bed in search of her daughter's angelic sleeping face. Bel stayed motionless in the large bed. She couldn't tell if he was sleeping or just pretending to be sleeping.
She didn't care.
Despite the bad mood she was in, she couldn't help smiling when she saw Dre sprawled out over her blankets in the cot. She watched the baby for a long time, pained but determined.
Coraline reached out and grasped one of Dre's tiny fingers in her hand, and hiccupped when a sob caught in her throat. "I... I wanted so much to be able to see you grow, to hear your first word, to teach you to walk... Watch you have your first boyfriend - hopefully not another magical spider - and grow into a beautiful young woman... But it seems I won't get the chance to..." She paused, and sighed once, deeply.
"I know you'll probably think of me as selfish, and cruel, to have chosen my family and my world over you... But I have to. I can't stay, Dre, I can't stay with your father. He and I- We... We..." Coraline chewed on her lower lip briefly. "We're not right together," she said, in the end. Dre turned over in her sleep, and fussed with her blankets a little, whining quietly. Coraline smiled slightly, and moved the girl's blanket to the side. The child stilled, before opening her dark eyes and staring at her mother in slight wonderment.
"Good morning," Coraline greeted her, trying to sound cheery. "Did you sleep well?"
The girl just continued staring at her blue-haired mother silently with wide eyes. Coraline continued to hold the girl's hand, relishing her final moments with her daughter.
She was distracted when Bel rapped his fist twice on the open oak door that led to their child's room. In his left arm he held a tray. Colourful dishes were arranged artfully upon them, and to each side were two milk bottles. She merely spared him a glance, having not quite forgiven him for the night before.
Bel knew she was still angry, and even though he regretted his actions, he'd resigned to her leaving. He had thought about it the whole night, having, like Coraline, not slept at all.
He laid the tray in her lap, as he always did when he found her too busy playing with Dre to move to the dining room. She made no move to dig into it. He didn't bother asking her to. Instead, he pulled Dre from the cot, cradling her in the crook of his arms. Then, while Coraline's eyes remained glued on the child he held, he removed one of the milk bottles from the tray and begun to feed the child. She caught sight of a wound on his neck, and felt suddenly guilty and somewhat embarrassed at the way she'd behaved the night before. She quickly averted her eyes.
For a long time, the only sounds that filled the room was that of Dre's hungry sucking. As embarrassed as Coraline had been, her eyes were continuously drawn to the father-daughter pair.
Coraline was too deep in thought to notice that silence of the room. Watching Bel hold Dre securely in his arms, feeding the girl, put her at ease somehow. She knew she could trust him with Dre. He would be- no, he was a fantastic parent already.
Hesitantly, she picked at the food on the tray, eating bits of it, suddenly feeling hungry. And she'd need the food anyway, she'd decided.
They stayed there in silence for a long time, neither saying anything as the mother and daughter was fed. The atmosphere was far too tense for Dre, who began to whimper, and despite much soothing from her father, began to cry and wail.
"Oh, shhh, shh, it's okay," Coraline said, removing the half-empty tray from her lap and rushing to calm the child down. Bel held the child out for her to take, but she ignored him, instead cradling Dre in between her and Bel, putting up a strong front as united parents for the girl. This seemed to calm Dre a little.
Unfortunately, this made it worse for Bel. His arm fell on Coraline's back, and he pushed her forward a little. Not enough to squeeze Dre, but enough for Coraline to feel the trembling in his fingers, and the thudding of his heart.
Coraline whispered more soothing words to her daughter, trying to distract herself from her lover's obvious suffering. If she didn't, it would be far harder for her to leave.
"Today..." Bel said, his voice low and quiet, in an I-give-up sort of way. "Let's go on a picnic. Let Dre remember her mother with good memories,"
Coraline nodded silently, knowing that it wasn't just Dre she wanted to leave with good memories, but also Bel. While she was angry at what he had said the night before, she didn't want to leave with the memory of their last encounter having ended in anger and spite.
The food was as delicious as always, and by the time they were done running through never-ending fields of flowers of blue and black, she was ravenous. She had lots of fun making Dre wreaths made out of flowers to put atop the child's black hair, the blue of the flowers standing out against her black hair. She was standing back to survey the child's beauty enhanced by the flower wreath when she felt something on her head. Bel stood behind her, smiling like himself for once. She took off the wreath to examine it, and felt as if the wreath of her own creation was a mere wedding band compared to his diamond ring. She contemplated exchanging the wreaths when Bel took it out of her hands and placed in on her head once again, and she thought his smile seemed sadder than before.
Finally, full and warm, she let Dre fall asleep on her lap, grateful for the blanket Bel materialised out of nowhere as she placed it on her baby's prone body. She stroked the girl's head repeatedly, a strange sense of pleasure filling her from doing so. Her eyes started to force themselves closed but she quickly opened them again. She couldn't fall asleep now and waste her final few hours with Dre.
But she was so sleepy. As she lost the battle she had waged with the fatigue of her body, she vaguely felt Bel positioning himself so she could fall asleep against his shoulder.
That simple action made her heart break even more.
The walk back to the house was agonising, and Dre seemed to know that the tension was more serious than before and didn't cry.
When finally they reached the house, Bel led Coraline to the living room. He couldn't delay her leaving any longer. He placed Dre onto a couch, and the little girl watched with wide eyes as her father coughed up a black key. Coraline then kissed the girl on the forehead, and gave her one last squeeze.
"I love you, my little Dre," she whispered.
Alarm bells started to go off in Dre's head. Why were her parents acting so strangely? Why were they in that room? Where did that small door in the wall lead to?
Bel was wiping the key clean with a black handkerchief when Coraline approached him from behind, and wrapped her arms around him, leaning against his back. For a moment, he couldn't do anything as she held onto him tightly, then her removed her arms from his waist. Coraline drew back, somewhat hurt at the rejection, though she knew she deserved it. Then he spun around and hugged her back, having to lean down slightly to fully embrace her.
"You could stay," she thought she heard him whisper into her ear. But it was so soft it was like he wasn't even trying to make himself heard. So she didn't reply, despite the stab of pain she felt in her chest from hearing the desperation in his voice.
When finally they released each other reluctantly, Coraline opened her mouth, but no words came out. Bel said nothing more. He handed her the key.
She grasped it, no longer finding the key as precious as she once did. In fact, it seemed to weigh a ton, and threatened to break the fingers that grasped it. She placed it into the keyhole of the door, and turned it until it clicked. It was when she swung open the door that Dre started to panic.
"Ma- Mama!" Dre screamed at the top of her lungs. Coraline turned back to her daughter with wide eyes, as did Bel. Dre held both arms out to her mother and continued to scream "Mama! Mama!"
Bel turned away from his daughter to find his lover looking at their daughter in partway horror. Could she still leave? Coraline's eyes met Bel's briefly, before she swung around and bolted down the tunnel, doing her best not to acknowledge Dre's first words. She panted loudly as the continuous mantra of "Mama, mama!" echoed from the other world. She burst through the other door and found she could no longer hear her daughter's panicked shouts. She didn't know whether to feel relief about that or break down crying.
"...Coraline?" Wybie asked, his jaw nearly dropping the floor. If Coraline hadn't had so many feelings running through her, she might've found it funny. Instead, she got to her feet and threw herself against her best friend, sobbing and desperate for some human contact. Wybie froze at first, not used to his friend being affectionate, then hugged her back as she cried into his shoulder, furious at what the Beldam had done to his friend.
Kate watched her boyfriend's arms encompassing and steadying the girl who grasped onto him for dear life. She didn't even notice how tightly she was holding onto the couch upholstery until it had ripped beneath her nails. Neither Coraline nor Wybie noticed.
And neither did Kate. All she could think about was how relieved she had been to see Coraline back, and how angry she felt when she practically jumped onto Wybie.
Never had she ever experienced anything as intense as her jealousy for Coraline in that moment.
"It's okay," Wybie told Coraline. "It's okay. You're home now. You're home,"
Yeah. She thought to herself. I'm home. This... is home.
But the final crying and screaming image of Dre would haunt her for many weeks to come.
- 24
- 25
- 26
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The Trade