Work Text:
Malcolm watches his mother in black and white, twenty years removed. He’s prepared to be a rational observer - well, as rational as one can be, given his parents. And this can hardly be as fraught as the countless conversations and confrontations he’s survived over the years.
He is a fool.
He’s captivated by the slump of her shoulders, the tremor of her voice. Leans toward the screen despite himself.
She’s there, the mother he remembers. The soft, warm edges to her perfect image he took for granted. She wasn’t as untouchable then, as sharp and demanding. Not to her family. Her children. Him.
Not before the night of the red dress and the girl in the box. Not before she held his arm so tightly it made his bones ache.
He clenches his fist. Can’t help remembering falling asleep to the same hand sweeping back his hair, the easy way she guided his fingers when he missed a note during piano practice. Malcolm stares at a person he hasn’t seen in two decades and he wants. Lets himself miss her in a way he usually denies, just for a moment.
His battered heart cracks wide open. He can no more stop the tears than he can the knowledge that he’s been right, all along.
She’s lying.
Onscreen, his mother’s tears are genuine. The lost way she searches Gil’s face, and the desperate, clinging hope when he reminds her who she has left to protect: these things are true. But so is her half-choked confession. She knew enough. To stop his father. To stop the rest of her world from crumbling under her feet. Even in her grief, Jessica Whitly is not undone.
Malcolm pauses the tape. Sits in the dark, head in his hands until he can breathe without wanting to rip the screen from the wall.
He needed the truth; now he has to decide what to do with it.