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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
- 28
- 29
- 30
Disclaimer: Oh, disclaimers. I'm getting so sick of them. Especially when no one even reads them. Coraline doesn't belong to me – it belongs to Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick.
Chapter 29: Retrieval

Coraline stayed in bed, and cried. She couldn't remember a time when she had cried so much. Everyone was either upset or angry with her. She couldn't walk in town for more than two minutes without hearing loud snippets of all the hurtful whispers and gossip. The school had expelled her for getting pregnant while she had been kidnapped. Nobody was on her side any more.
Cat didn't even visit her that night.
She remembered someone telling her once that self-pity brought on tears faster than anything else. The shame she felt at having proven this person right just made her cry even more.
She hugged the doll tightly to her chest, and cried, and sobbed, and poured her heart out to the doll. She knew that somewhere out there her beloved spider could feel her pain, would want just as badly to hold her in his arms and shield her from the rest of the world that had made her cry. She didn't know how right she was.
She didn't know when she had run out of tears to cry. It was nearly three in the morning when she felt her stomach throb suddenly. She was so surprised she promptly forgot her misery, instead laying her hand on her midriff. She felt no other movement and started counting in her head. She was pretty sure Dre didn't start kicking until nearly five months later. And yet she had felt the throb.
"I'm sorry," she suddenly apologised to her stomach. "I'm so sorry. Mummy didn't mean to make you miserable too," she told her stomach, rubbing it in circles soothingly. "I know it's not your fault that mummy's like this. It's okay, my baby. I'll protect you no matter what,"
She continued to press her palm to the small bulge, rubbing it. Her baby. She needed to bring it up well, give it all the opportunities it deserved. Could she really do that in this town, where everyone seemed to look at her like she was a whore? Her blood ran cold. Would they try anything to hurt her child? She had quite a few enemies right now, it could happen.
"Bel... Help me..." Even as the plea left her mouth she knew it was useless. He had been sealed away. And it had been her choice. She ran her hands through her hair. God, I'm going crazy.
She ached to see him again. To feel him hug her, play with her hair, and place his long fingers against her distended stomach, stroking their child.
Suddenly, it became clear to her what she had to do. She stopped trying to pull out her hair.
"I have to get the key back," she whispered to herself. Then she bolted out the door, leaving the doll behind.
Bel blinked. She was going to get the key back? Why now? He couldn't help the little thrill he felt at the mere suggestion. To have his darling Coraline back... He shuddered, trying to push it out of his mind. It wouldn't do that have his hopes crushed if somehow she couldn't do it.
He hoped she hadn't left it in the well again. It seemed like something she and Wybie would do, to throw him off its scent. Not that he could really get to it from where he was. But if it was so, it could be very dangerous for her to even attempt to get it back. Surely she wouldn't be that stupid, to put his child and herself in such danger?
"Daddy?" Dre asked. He looked down, having forgotten she was on his lap, listening to him describe what her mother was doing. When he saw what a state Coraline was in, he lied, telling her she was studying and making silly mistakes with math. Dre had gotten quite curious when he suddenly stopped describing what her mother was doing and fell silent, thinking through something. "Did something happen to mama?"
"She's sleeping," He told Dre, sweeping her bangs off her forehead where they cascaded over her eyes. Apparently his genes were more dominant than Coraline, as their baby didn't just have his eye colour, but also his hair colour. In a few years, she'd learn to morph, and it wouldn't really matter, of course. But whenever he looked into her face, he saw more and more of Coraline's features developing there, and hoped she would come to love her human form as he now did.
"Oh," Dre replied, seeming disappointed. She pouted slightly.
Coraline looked down into the inky blackness. She wondered if the rumour was true that if you went to the bottom of the well, and looked up in the middle of the afternoon, all you would see is the night sky. The full moon shone brightly above her, and little did she knew that it had been a whole year ago when the careless actions of three children had set her fate into motion.
Coraline contemplated returning when the sun was up, but figured she might not last that long. The ache to see Bel and Dre had grown steadily as she made her way to the well, and now she couldn't wait to retrieve her key and rush through the door, possibly never returning to this world that had turned its back on her.
She bit onto her torchlight, holding it securely in her mouth, and unravelled the rope she had found in the kitchen, among tools her father had bought and never used. She looked around and found a tree nearby she could knot the rope to. She thought back to the game she and Bel had played when she had returned to the Other World, and was glad she learned quickly how to tie knots securely so that they don't break, epecially when they have to bear the weight of a god-knows-how-heavy magical spider.
Coraline's fingers worked on the rope quickly. "Wait for me, Bel, Dre. I'm coming home soon," she whispered to herself every time her stupid brain even suggested she back out of this rather than go into the well and find the key among god knows what other living creatures dwelling in the dark depths of the moist well.
She was practically panting when she had finished her knot, having psyched herself up to the point that her body was pumping out adrenaline at an insane rate. She tested the rope several times, making sure it was secure and could take her weight, before feeding it into the well. She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard it splash into the well. She held onto it tightly, and then began her descent into the dark well, torch in her mouth. She propped her feet up against the well walls several times, but found the moss-covered surface was too slippery to hold onto, so instead she simply held onto the rope for full support.
She was halfway down when she wondered - what if the well was still quite full with water, and she had to dive to the dark bottom to find the key?
She shivered at that thought.
It's all for Bel and Dre. It's all for Bel and Dre. She chanted to herself, gritting her teeth as she went even lower. And for my current baby. She added, and that thought was enough to drive her on.
The trip down was agonising. The well was so much deeper than she thought. And so cold. She shivered through the three layers of clothing she wore in preparation to complete this quest. Down she climbed, down the rope. She almost thought this monotonous activity would continue and her mission would be completed without any hitches, when a loud snap made her gut drop.
A few strands of the rope had snapped further up, and she could almost hear more stretching as it struggled to hold up her weight.
Her chest constricted, and she suddenly had trouble breathing. It was almost as if her body had recognised the weakness of the rope and was restricting her intake of oxygen, as if that would be the deciding factor in the snapping of the rope.
She tried to climb back up, hoping to get to it before it broke. She moved one hand up. More snaps. But not as loud. Why didn't she check the whole length of rope for any weaknesses before she used it? She cursed herself bitterly, full-blown panic taking over her as she shimmied up the rope as quick as she could, ignoring the snaps.
She only got about a foot or so up, before the rope gave way completely. She screamed as gravity pulled her down and wondered if this was it. She didn't fall very long until the water swallowed her up, and she found herself drenched in well-water.
She was relieved to find it was quite shallow, and that when she stood, it only came up to her waist. Her torch had ended up in the water as well, and she was relieved that she had brought her water-proof one, and not the cheap torch that would have probably electrocuted her as it touched the water. She shone the beam of light up and took a deep breath when she found that the rope had snapped quite far up. Way too far for her to somehow jump or climb for it. Not that the well-walls were very easy to climb. The moss slipped beneath her fingers, refusing to give her any hand-holds to heft herself up.
She stood in the water, her hair plastered to her face, and brainstormed. But no matter how much she tried to think, she could not formulate a plan to get out. She shivered, wondering how much time had passed. Yet her upper body didn't seem any drier. The well was damp and humid, not to mention cold. Coraline's panic returned, and she placed her arms on her abdomen, trying to will what leftover warmth she had in her body to her womb, and the consequences of her rash actions finally hit her. She knew that cold conditions could kill off foetuses, and her child was only three months old.
She sobbed an apology to her baby, telling it to be strong, and that she'd find a way out for it. She tried moving around in the water, trying to tap into her energy reserves, when she slipped, causing herself to fall back in the water and get drenched all over again. She almost cursed the heavens for her bad luck, when she felt her shoes nudge against something. Something metallic.
Her hand shot down and grabbed it, before she resurfaced and stood in the water, eyes wide as she scanned the key. Her key. Her one way of getting back to the Other World. Back to Dre... and Bel. She hugged it close to her heart, and started sobbing.
She got it. She got the key. But at what cost? She was going to lose her baby, and her own life, trapped in this well. She started to call out for help, calling and calling until she was hoarse. Surely someone would go looking for her once they noticed her gone, right? It had to be close to morning, they had to be coming for her.
She had almost given up when she heard a reply.
"Coraline?" A girl's voice echoed down the length of the well.
"Kate!" Coraline couldn't remember feeling so relieved to see another human being in her life. "Kate, help me!" Her throat ached at the abuse she was putting it through, but she didn't care. She had to get her baby warm. "I'm stuck!"
For a long time, there was no reply, but Coraline thought she could make out Kate's silhouette at the open mouth of the well. The blood drained out of her face when her mind suddenly flashed back to their last encounter, mere hours ago.
"SAVE IT!"
So she couldn't say she was surprised when what little she could see Kate of disappeared, and the cover to the well being pushed back into place.
"Kate..." she whispered to herself, feeling her last hope fade into nothingness.
- 28
- 29
- 30
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The Trade