It was four or five years ago when the accident occurred. The circumstances of the accident are subject to rumor, ranging from sabotage due to an unhappy marriage to the spaceship manufacturers using parts that were below standard, at best. What is known is that two people died and their daughter survived, albeit critically wounded such that she is still cryogenically frozen. She may never wake up. What follows is an attempt to reconstruct the events of that night based on the information available. For the sake of that woman, still sleeping like a princess in a castle, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest must remain faithful.
Jacob M. Wattermon was a man of low birth. He born on Earth on November 22nd, 1963 to a Romani family. He spent the first twenty four years of his life wandering the European continent trying to survive. Sometimes, he was a thief. Others, a servant. And once his mother died, a parent to his younger brother, Michael. The world in those twelve years had hurt his family in ways that are too cruel and meanspirited to talk about here. Some stories are perhaps best left untold, or at least told by a better storyteller.
It was on October 3rd, 1987 that Jacob met Vanessa P. Marston, twenty two year old heiress to the Marston fortune. He was on the run from a pack of cops who wanted to lock him up for the simple crime of stealing a loaf of bread for his sick brother (who sadly died three days later). She was on the run from her parents for the crime of being unlawfully queer. No one would say, publicly, that she was into men and women. She didn’t even fully understand these emotions bubbling within her like a bottle of soda shook up for far too long. Her mother had reached the end of menopause and her father was the rare millionaire who devoted himself to his wife. They did not know what was going on with their daughter. They didn’t even know she was missing. But then, it had only been an hour.
Their meeting was brief, yet impactful. Her presence on that street corner was a good distraction for the police. Not that she was wanted, but that she bumped into the officers while leaving a bar, giving young Jacob enough time to escape. The bar was an old one, practically there since the dawn of the century. Most of the clientele were queer. Some were men, some women, and some trying to think of a word that described a state in between those two binaries. Some even reject the very notion of binary gender in favor of something else. The bar would remain open for many years to come, and it was here that Jacob and Vanessa met again on October 10th, 1987.
Michael was to be buried in an unmarked grave the next day. Jacob, not wanting the affair to be just him, looked to see if Michael had any friends (Jacob had spent too long caring for his brother to have friends). He found in the pocket of his sore covered brother’s pants a card for a bar calling itself The Lovely Angel. Jacob arrived at 7:15AM and immediately asked the bartender a few questions. Initially, the bartender was warry about Jacob. It was still seen as criminal for people to be themselves in the English 80’s. At least, that was what Clause 28 and Maggie said. They had also been hearing stories about police going up to their queer fellows and “questioning” them about their actions, much in the same way a butcher questions a pig about its actions. It wasn’t until Jacob mentioned Michael by name that the bartender declenched their sphincter. The plague had been raging throughout the world for years now and no one seemed to care. They would die of it before the decade came to a close. They held Michael when he saw the first sore. They knew he was strong, able to fight the plague to the bitter end. They cried when Jacob said he had a smile on his face when he passed.
While the bartender went to grab some people who knew his brother and Jacob nursed his vodka (“On the house,” they said. Then, after a short pause, “For Michael.”), Jacob caught a glimpse of Vanessa. She was a rare breed of woman, the kind with an infectious smile, a verbose giggle, and eyes that could make the sun melt into a ball of golden lava. He didn’t recognize her from their first encounter (he was too busy focusing on getting away from the cops). He didn’t say anything at first, as Vanessa was watching the news. It appeared that a New York City vigilante dressed up like Spider-Man was brutalizing people who were unlawfully poor and brown. The police had rather unsubtly, if nonverbally, given their support to the masked criminal, much to Vanessa’s chagrin.
She turned away from the tv in disgust and towards Jacob. He had an awkward smile on his face, the kind one gives when they hope they haven’t said something stupid to make a person they just met angry. Vanessa didn’t say anything, nor did she walk away. She just smiled the kind of smile people give when they fail at convincing strangers that they aren’t going through a lot. Jacob was a bit dense, so he didn’t get the full implications of the smile, but he certainly got enough to know he didn’t come off as a creep.
They only started to hit it off when they began talking to each other. It was a typical meet cute affair of sly wit, common interests, and genuine attraction. Vanessa was confused by the implications of these feelings. Was her queerness just a phase like she was taught it would be as a child. Was she growing up. Then she turned to look at the biker chick who was as tall as an amazon with a devil may care grin and realized that no, it was not a phase. (It would take her three more visits to The Lovely Angel to ever hear the term “pansexuality.”)
Jacob and Vanessa continued dating in secret for the next three years, though to say it was a secret is perhaps a bit of an assumption of perspective. While her parents didn’t know (and, indeed, would never know) about her love, various servants in the Marston household were well aware of her dating someone “beneath her” and found it somewhat amusing. Some would dare say she was slumming it before she moved on to some rich guy who would bury her in oodles of money. Alas, such a life was not meant to be.
On December 29th, 1990, Dragoon Marston the Fourth and Lilian Marston died tragically in a boating accident. Their bodies were not found for seven years, but it was agreed upon rather quickly that they were dead. This is mainly due to little details such as “there was a sudden storm in the area of sea where their sailing plan had them on” and “the mast of the ship was found on the shores of Singapore three days after their deaths.” One detail that isn’t typically brought up in such conversations is that Vanessa was supposed to be on that boat with them but, due to an unforeseen illness, was not. There are conflicting reports on the matter, with some of the servants claiming that she was not in the house when her parents had left and some had claimed she was as fit as a fiddle when she heard the news of her parents demise. No one would dare say foul play about the scenario, least of all in Vanessa’s earshot. It should also be noted that on that very same night, Jacob rented a boat from an associate of his.
Regardless, Vanessa was orphaned that night. Which meant that she had inherited the family fortune and, more importantly, lacked anyone who could stop her from marrying the man she loved. She would wait a year. It would take that long for the paper work, planning, and genuine mourning to be done. Jacob was happy, if somewhat apprehensive, to have their relationship in the open. He would say to those who asked that he was saddened that he never got to meet Vanessa’s parents in person, as they seemed like nice people.
This, of course, contradicts one eye witness testimony, who claims to have seen Jacob Wattermon interact with Dragoon Marston the Fourth on December 25th, 1990. The details of the conversation are sketchy at best (the eye witness was noticeably drunk when giving the testimony and had a long and sketchy history with Wattermon that would give him reason enough to discredit the fellow. Also, the people who released the testimony was the Daily Mail, so…). What can be ascertained from the conversation was that Dragoon was quite cross with Jacob over his relationship with his daughter. While the specific words used in the conversation aren’t clear, it is notable that one of the sentences Dragoon bellowed like a dragon was “I will not sit idly by while my daughter is gang [redacted] by a bunch of [redacted]!” before promptly ordering the butler to punch Jacob in the face. Repeatedly.
In the years that follow, Jacob and Vanessa lived a happy life. On June 13th, 1994, they had their only child, a daughter named Fae. In the twenty years they lived together, Fae learned both the benefits of luxury as well as several skills one might need if one lacks access to it. Skills such as con artistry, cutting cards, and parkour. She was loved and adored by her parents and she loved them back. As she grew older, she began to love other things and other people. She had a date with two women who claimed to be time traveling space cops (or trouble consultants, as they put it) that ended poorly for everyone. She spent a year with a guy named Ryan Chack, whose heart she ultimately broke. But at the age of 20, she was single.
It was on May 29th, 2014 that the accident happened. Her parents had recently bought a spaceship directly from the factory. Jacob had made friends with Marco Wallace, the owner of the manufacturer in the decades married to Vanessa. To celebrate their friendship, Walter gave Jacob one of the newest line of spaceship that wasn’t even available to the public. For her part, Vanessa was quite jovial with Walter, though some have noted a shifting in her eyes whenever he’s around. As if he was a lamb and she a tiger. The smiles were too large at times. The plan was for the three of them to go to the moon and back, a simple (if pedestrian) trip.
Then the accident happened.
Again, the records of what happened are sparse, at best. There is no answer left in the data or the crime scene or anywhere that shows one way or the other. We are only left with unanswered questions. Did Vanessa cheat on her husband with Walter? Did he think he did? Was this the first time Jacob had killed someone out of a sense of love? For that matter, did Vanessa think Walter was cheating on her with someone else? There are records that he was spending a lot of time with Walter, could it be they were lovers? For that matter, why was Walter so willing to give a spaceship to Jacob and his family that wasn’t even available to the public? A spaceship that was immediately recalled from the factories and destroyed before anyone could investigate further? Was Fae aware of any of this? There are so many questions left in the remains of this tragic affair that destroyed what seemed to be a loving family. All we can hope for is that Fae one day wakes up and remembers all the answers.
This is a true story.
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