Title: now alone i lie and weep beside the tree.
Fandom: The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Characters: Rebecca/Peter.
Prompt: Nightmare.
Rating: M.
Length: 415.
Content warnings: References death, murder, drowning, PTSD, ghosts. Set within 1x07, spoilers.
Author’s notes: Also written for the word prompt "peace." Title is from Kingston Trio-O’s "Willow Waly."
Summary: Rebecca in the aftermath.


She wakes. She walks. She never rests.

Rebecca’s feet never feel firm against the ground. Bared, she spreads her toes against the wooden floorboards outside of her room and watches as the Lady of the Lake walks right through her. She tracks mud where Rebecca tracks nothing at all.

She wanders through the house, the rooms dark despite the windows being wide open. Owen’s dinner smells of nothing. The kitchen is bright with laughter yet it appears dull to her. Hollowed out, her seat unoccupied and her placemat not even out.

Watching from the dark corner of the kitchen, Hannah’s gaze flickers to hers, but she sees right through her. Rebecca is nothing but brick.

She cannot hear half of the words they mumble nor does Flora’s laughter hit her as warmly as it once did. She feels and hears everything through a thick puddle of water.

She leaves and he follows her, but Rebecca refuses to look back. When he morphs into her shadow, she tilts her head up, straightens her back, and feels her feet press sharply against the ground.

Becs feels like a dagger of water cutting through her. Lungs aching, chest burning, her throat tightens as she wills herself not to cry.

Peter follows her. He never sleeps. He wakes, he walks, and he follows her, unrestful in her shadow. She pays him no mind. His shadow tries to smother her in the daylight but she refuses to be drowned.

As she walks out of the house and to the lake, her feet begin to grow muddied and wet by the bank. She stands at the very edge, the water pressing against her toes, and she watches as the still surface takes life after life with every bug and leaf that flutters into it. She no longer rests in the water, buried deep in the ground where she’ll never be able to walk.

"Becs, c’mon," he says, voice cracking. He’s behind her, a cold, hollow thing, and she only tilts her head up more defiantly. "I love you."

Swallowing thickly, she steps into the water willingly. She wishes for it to take her as he watches, feet encased in thick shoes, his clothing dry.

Rebecca submerges herself. She wakes, she walks, and she doesn’t rest at all. He waits for her on the surface, looming over her as a shadow. She walks to him at the bottom of the lake.

Now, he refuses to leave her alone.