All the Colors of the Light (all the Colors of the Dark Fan Fiction)

Charlotte stared at the paper. Friday: Criminal Justice 101. The letters looked small on the large, flimsy paper. Her goal was law. Her reality was zero law classes.

Mrs. Beal—the guidance counselor, assigned to the pre-law hopefuls—was a woman who smelled overwhelmingly of gardenias but reeked of disappointment. Colleges divided their students by futures they hadn’t lived yet, handing out maps to newcomers who only wanted to run.

Prerequisites first, Beal had said. Many students end up changing majors. Charlotte scowled. She was not many students. She would not change her major.

To Charlotte, the grid was a trap of foundations—Psychology, Pre-calculus, History of World Conflicts—old, bloody, and boring as fuck. Chemistry was in there too, along with all the Tuesday and Thursday classes.

She had fought for the fifth. Begged, almost. Introduction to Constitutional Theory. A special approval. A tiny concession. Just enough to keep the semester from making her completely lose her mind.

She folded the paper into a perfect square. Small enough to hide. She stuffed it deep into the front pocket of her bag, her fingers brushing the full metal tubes of paint. Patch’s paint. They were a going-away gift that smelled of linseed and moist earth.

Her mind drifted backward, twenty-four hours out. She saw the boat swaying in the water in the early morning light—before the flight to Boston—before she and Saint started off in the cruiser, the engine humming as they sped down the highway, the sun rising over the horizon.

She thought of Saint. The way she had stepped into Patch’s arms—the closeness. It wasn't a quick goodbye. It wasn’t like before. Patch had held her so tight they appeared as one person. Saint buried her face into his chest, disappearing into the worn fabric of his tee, long and heavy with things unsaid. It looked like two people remembering a promise. Saint looked like she was tired…tired she had to leave again. She looked like she didn’t want to leave at all.

Outside the legal clinic, the rain had stopped, leaving the pavement slick and black. A BMW sat idling by the curb, its silver paint gleaming under the overcast Boston sky. A man leaned against the hood in a navy tailored suit that looked brand new. His brown leather oxfords were so highly polished they looked like poured plastic. He was shouting into a shiny flip phone, his face twisted.

"Son of a bitch," he spat, his voice cutting through the traffic. "You paid the retainer for the grand jury deposition. But you didn't keep your end of the deal. Now we’re looking at obstruction. That means new charges. That means a new fee!"

Charlotte kept her eyes straight ahead. She didn't stop. She reached for the heavy iron handle of the door next door. The brass plaque was tarnished, engraved with the words: Boston Center for Immigrant & Tenant Rights. Ironic, she thought. The old red brick building sat directly in the shadow of a towering monolith of dark, smoked glass—the corporate headquarters of Harris, Baker & Clarke LLP. Wealth looking down on survival.

It didn't matter. She was in the right place.

She knew it the moment she stepped inside and saw the benches. This was the Boston the postcards left out. Men in dusty, faded denim jackets, their work boots caked in drywall plaster, calloused hands shaking with wrinkled eviction notices. Women with hollow eyes holding toddlers wearing coats a size too small, waiting for someone—anyone—to speak for them against a system built to keep them out.

Charlotte gripped her bag tighter. She belonged here.

The yellow October leaves danced in the distance. Saint sat in the front seat, engine idling against the wind, pressing the heavy plastic flip phone to her ear. Charlotte was doing well. She liked the legal aid office—sorting through backlogged eviction notices alongside Derrick, an attorney who took on the pro bono cases nobody else had the heart to touch. Her courses dragged on, but her marks were high. She had even started seeing a boy.

Jacob Carter—born into money, raised in a home full of defense attorneys. The lawyers in the office called him Jake, but Charlotte called him Feather. Pinned to his backpack, he wore a dreamcatcher like a badge—a hand-woven circle of thread with small feathers dangling from the frame, brought back from a summer in Boulder volunteering with the Native American Rights Fund. The internship—usually kept for law school upperclassmen—was opened early by his mother’s checkbook to nurture her son's clear passion for justice.

“I’m proud of you, Charlotte,” Saint said, her voice gravel against the static. “Do the work. Help the people. But don’t take the dark home with you.”

Charlotte was quiet on the other end, the line humming in the miles between them. “You’re thinking of Grace.”

“It’s easy to become obsessed to the point you lose focus,” Saint said. “To where the saving becomes the only thing keeping you breathing.”

“It’s not like that, Saint. We’re a team in this office. We share the burden. Nothing I do here touches my life on the outside. It won’t change. I promise.”

As the words left Charlotte's mouth, a cold, sharp chill ran down Saint’s spine—like the warning of a siren.

“I love you, Charlotte.” The words came out fast, an impulsive rush against the wind, as if she wasn’t sure she’d ever get the chance to say them again.

Patch held the eyepatch—the one embroidered with the white skull and crossbones—the one he’d swore as a boy he’d wear on his wedding day. Back when Misty Meyer was the only bride he knew how to imagine.

He reached into his tin and pulled out a plain white cloth. “Maybe I should sew a bee on this one,” he said softly.

Saint propped her head up on her fist, stretching out under the cool cotton of their bed. “You’d need someone who knows how to hold a needle without poking their own fingers,” she said, her voice still raspy with sleep. “And in Monta Clare, you couldn’t ask a soul without the whole county knowing by supper.”

Patch smoothed out the crumpled patch, stretching it flat against his thigh. “I guess we can’t yet. Everyone would know who it’s for. And we can’t very well get married legally either—not with me running.”

Their eyes met in the pale morning light—an unbothered determination burning in Saint’s gaze.

He lay back down beside her, his hand reaching under the sheet to cup the small, firm curve of her growing belly. “I don’t want to be a ghost in this child’s life. I missed too much of Charlotte’s.” Her hand went over his, calm—steady. They lay there a while, the reality setting in.

He sat up again, staring out the narrow brass porthole at the rolling grey tide of the coast. “I’ve been running nearly two years… would’ve only had another year left if I’d stayed. I know I couldn’t with Eli… but now…” He turned back to her, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “I’m thinking of turning myself in.”

Saint sat up abruptly, pulling the sheet tight against her chest, pressing her shoulder hard against his. “You can never go back. Who knows what they’ll do? You can’t, you hear me?”

“Saint, look at me,” Patch said softly, taking her chin in his hand. “Eli’s dead. If I stay running, every siren is a threat. Every knock is a life we have to abandon. I don't want our child growing up having to hide, using an alias… not even knowing who I really am, or waiting for the day the police finally catch up to us. A few years inside—with an end date—is the only way we have a chance at a real life… together.”

Saint’s jaw remained stiff, her eyes fixed on the painting—now one of many—where they stood on the dock, hand in hand. She could imagine their child right there along with them. But could it truly be? Bringing a baby, even a young child, on the day-long drive to the coast where Patch came only at night wasn’t like bringing Charlotte.

“Okay,” she said, her voice heavy, unconvinced. “But not until Charlotte can come here one more time. Thanksgiving. She’ll have her break. We’ll tell her about the baby together… then she can say goodbye.”