Tears On My Pillow

Summary: Spoilers for 3x02 Because simply there are not enough Matt & Vicki stories on the show, and they had a really interesting relationship, I present this humble one-shot to you, and hope you give it the same attention you have to so many other of my fics. Thanks. I also have to give props to Zach Roerig (Matt Donovan) for brilliant acting in that episode. Emotional episode.

….

Her fingers splay across thin air as she reaches for him. In the air, she can taste his sorrow, feel his loneliness, and maybe she can feel it as strong as she can because it's the same story for her.

Trapped in darkness, left to linger between worlds more than shadow and ghost, but less than solid flash, she steps forwards (although stepping might be an overstatement), breathing his name.

"Matty."

But he can't hear. Yet in some small way, he perhaps can feel her, because his fingers run across the photo of them together, and he bites his lip, the habit he broke just before his teen years. And she can see the pain etched onto his face, the desperation to believe she might just be back, even if he cannot see her.

She finds herself rendered speechless, tied to this wonderful human being she had to leave behind. It strikes her maybe she'd left him in the dark long before her tragic death (again, tragic might be an overstatement – she didn't exactly touch a lot of lives), her crazy, erratic personality matching that of a broken record, occasionally playing something new, but more often than not choosing to jam on one particular song. Yet through it all, he'd been her constant, and though there had been the odd threat - "You keep this up… I'm not gonna help you anymore, you'll be on your own!" – he'd always had a soft spot where she was concerned.

Her eyes trace her fingers which gently move the photograph – which he'd slammed down, torn by the memories – and with some strength, she stands it back up, somehow aware this is about the limit of contact she can get away with. And it's gotten his attention; he turns, sees the framed photo stood up, and she can see it in his eyes he's starting to believe for real.

"Vicki?" he can't help but mutter, and just hearing her name does something to her.

She wants to cry, give him a proper sign she's here, but she can't. All she has is the power to love him from afar, something she'd considerably failed at when she'd been alive. Like most people, she'd taken advantage of his good nature, made him fetch her after wild nights out, given him verbal abuse when he'd tried to help her with her drug problem. He'd never deserved any of it.

"Vicki, if you're here…" He tries again. "I – "

But he cannot finish that sentence.

"Matty?" She feels herself start to lose it, piece by piece. "I'm right here, Matty. But you've gotta help me."

Maybe that's asking too much, for him to try and save her when she's literally worlds apart from him. But here, everything feels cold, wrong. She expected when her eyelids closed for the final time for there to be something, some kind of proof no matter how screwed up her life had been, her heart had been enough to save her.

Instead, she faces an eternity of coldness, a long montage of darkness interspersed with rare moments of contact with the world she left behind.

And all she really remembers is holding Jeremy's broken body in her arms, willing him to wake up, stroking his (ever changing) hair, shortly before something – some kind of magic – pulled him away, and somehow she'd ended up along for the ride, the burst back into reality as shocking as it was painful.

Imagine being at rest only for something to drag you up (drag, unfortunately, being neither an exaggeration nor an overstatement of a word) to life which, if possible, is an even harder process to wrap your head around than death.

Matt doesn't even see her – but his eyes land on her a few times as he sweeps the room, clearly hoping for another sign. She watches him shake his head, probably silently debating over whether he'd been getting an adequate amount of sleep, before retreating from the room.

She would follow, but the darkness is sort of her companion now. She flickers in and out, tuning in when the need is greatest. She's been feeling particularly attached to Jeremy, not just because he's the boy she really cares about, but because despite his relationship with Bonnie – that really creeps her out, and not just because every part of her aches with jealousy – he doesn't quite feel he belongs.

Matt and Jeremy have a lot more in common than they could possibly think.

They are both outcasts, of sorts, searching for a way to belong, searching to find a role in their respective worlds, whilst both nursing broken hearts which, at first glance, seem irreparable.

It's good they've found each other in all this mess, good they've decided to bond a little bit more, to exchange pieces of a past they still aren't sure about (and probably never will be), and she sort of has to be grateful (albeit very reluctantly) that Elena had the initiative to take away Jeremy's memory of her as a monster – let's not sugar coat the truth here.

She doesn't want to be remembered like that.

Like a candle in the wind, she fears whatever memories she'd reaped and made in life are fading, slowly being snuffed out by the cruel reality of life. She fears being forgotten more than anything else, because she doesn't want to admit (however true it may be) that she did little or nothing to keep the people close to her heart on her side.

So you can imagine the sheer smile (sadness spilling from the fringes of her mouth) when Matt comes back in, slowly shuffling in, reluctance and unbelievable sadness on his face, reaching for the photo frame, pressing his lips against it very lightly, before his entire body turns to face her, his eyes in line with hers.

It's a nice, if not deluded, thought to think maybe he can see her, if only for that brief moment.

And though she's never been one to cry, she can feel her entire chest heave with emotion, and the corners of her eyes begin to flood.

"Matty…"

His eyes sweep the room again, a resigned smile settling on his features, as though he knows he won't ever be able to see her but settles for just feeling her presence, which is funny, because it's the complete opposite for her.

And in that moment, she realizes her life may have been hell at the best of times but she always had him, and he always had her.