Fanmix: Point of No Return
Medium: Books
Fandom: The Dresden Files
Subject: Margaret Gwendolyn Dresden
Title: Point of No Return
Notes: Roughly chronological. Explication, cover art, and zip link behind the cut. SPOILERS for everything, up to and including Small Favor, but especially Blood Rites (pirates, ye be warned). Speculation involving Harry and why he was actually born. Insistence that, regardless of the reason Harry was born, Margaret Lefay loved Malcolm Dresden.




1. Portrait of a Girl—Bare

Paint her in
Watching one color end and one begin
Brush away what's stray
There's disguise in her eyes
Add shadows that dance across her skin
Hide the doubt that cries out within her
Stripped bare beneath all the layers
Would you recognize the girl lying there?

They all want her to be perfect—their perfect little girl, little apprentice, little object, molded to fit their expectations and created exactly as they wish. Layers on layers of lies; could anyone blame her for wanting a little bit of freedom?

2. Defying Gravity—Wicked

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap

So Maggie packs her bags and slips out in the dead of night, tiptoes past the dogs and horses and wards. She looks up at the dark sky, endless and glittering with stars, and laughs for sheer joy.

3. Tomorrow Belongs to Me—Cabaret

The sun on the meadow is summery warm
The stag in the forest runs free
But gathered together to greet the storm
Tomorrow belongs to me

She knows; she knows the world is ending, she knows it’s all coming to darkness. But that’s years and years away, and now Justin and the others have shown her the way, and the day, when it comes, will be hers.

4. Where’s the Girl? –The Scarlet Pimpernel

Where's the girl so alive and still aching for more?
We had dreams that were worth dying for
We were caught in the eye of a storm
Come again!
Let the girl in your heart tumble free
Bring your renegade heart home to me
In the dark of the morning, I'll warm you
I'll rouse you

She meets Adelai Raith first when she’s with Justin, seventeen and wide-eyed, and turns away because what she’s learning is too important. She meets him again when she’s twenty, hungry and aching for something she can’t understand. This time, he succeeds.

5. The Point of No Return—Phantom of the Opera

What raging fire shall flood the soul?
What rich desire unlocks its door?
What sweet seduction lies before us?
Past the point of no return,
the final threshold, what warm,
unspoken secrets will we learn?
Beyond the point
of no return…

She’s twenty, too old to know that she’s too young for this and too smart to think she’s too silly, and too far gone to know that maybe she can still turn back.

6. Poor Unfortunate Souls—The Little Mermaid (cover by The Jonas Brothers)

Those poor unfortunate souls
So sad, so true
If you wanna cross the bridge, my sweet
You've got the pay the toll
Take a gulp, take a breath
Go ahead, sign the scroll

Maggie signs her life away for a hopeless stupid lust that never made any sense to begin with, and can’t imagine ever regretting it.

7. Unworthy of Your Love—Assassins

I am nothing,
You are wind and devil and God,
Charlie,
Take my blood and my body
For your love.
Let me feel fire,
Let me drink poison,
Tell me to tear my heart in two,
If that's what you want me to do...

Maggie is so totally under Raith’s spell by the time she’s twenty-five that she agrees instantly and without reservation to have his child. She’s already agreed to so much more, killing and stealing and lying; what could a child possibly do but bring them closer?

8. Not While I’m Around—Sweeny Todd

No one's gonna hurt you,
No one's gonna dare.
Others can desert you,
Not to worry, whistle, I'll be there.
Demons'll charm you with a smile, for a while,
But in time—
Nothing can harm you
Not while I'm around.

Raith made a rare mistake when he gave her Thomas, because it’s her love for Thomas that makes her realize what she feels for Raith is nothing, and it’s Thomas’s love for her that gives her the courage to break free, for her son.

9. Nobody’s Side—Chess

What's going on around me
Is barely making sense
I need some explanations fast
I see my present partner
In the imperfect tense
And I don't see how we can last
I feel I need a change of cast
Maybe I'm on nobody's side.

It still takes five years of turmoil and confusion before she realizes that Raith is not on her side, and neither is Justin, and in fact, maybe no one is on anyone’s side at all except their own.

10. The Riddle—The Scarlet Pimpernel

And we all have so many faces
The real self often erases
Enticing lies flicker through our eyes
Feel the terror draw ever nearer
The more you stare in the mirror
But hold your own
Face the wind alone

Five years, then she sees her opportunity and bolts, runs as far and as fast as she can, changing faces and names like a flickering flame, dodging and hiding, and alone, alone, alone because she’s the only one she can trust.

11. Whispering—Spring Awakening

Listening
To the souls in the fool's night
Fumbling mutely with their rude hands
And there's heartache without end
…
Listening
For the hope, for the new life
Something beautiful, a new chance
Hear its whispering
There again

In a dingy little club in Memphis, meditating on her sins, wondering if life will ever be free again, she meets a tall man with blue eyes and a hopeless joy in his smile, and feels the tiniest stirrings of hope.

12. I Don’t Know How to Love Him—Jesus Christ Superstar

I don't know how to love him.
What to do, how to move him.
I've been changed, yes really changed.
In these past few days, when I've seen myself,
I seem like someone else.
I don't know how to take this.
I don't see why he moves me.
He's a man. He's just a man.
And I've had so many men before.

Malcolm Dresden, with his soft smile and gentle hands, is so different from anyone and everyone she’s ever known that she finds it impossible to think how to deal with him, how to affect him the way he affects her.

13. I’ll Try—Return to Neverland

I try and try to understand,
The distance in between:
The love I feel, the things I fear,
I dearly say good dream.
I can finally see it.
Now I have to believe:
All those precious stories.
All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.

He makes her believe in fairy tales, and love, and happy endings, and Maggie silently resolves that she will never disappoint him.

14. Can You Feel the Love Tonight?—The Lion King (cover by Elton John)

And can you feel the love tonight
It is where we are
It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer
That we got this far
And can you feel the love tonight
How it's laid to rest
It's enough to make kings and vagabonds
Believe the very best

Malcolm is enough for her, in and of himself; against all odds, against all experience, against everything she’s ever done and believed, he is enough.

15. Somewhere that’s Green—Little Shop of Horrors

I'm his December bride
He's father, he knows best
Our kids watch Howdy Doody
As the sun sets in the west
A picture out of Better Homes and Gardens magazine
Far from skid row
I dream we'll go
somewhere that's green.

The first time they try to kill him, she catches her breath and convinces herself it’s a fluke; the second, she pretends is coincidence. By the third, she knows her dreams of a normal life are just that; silly dreams.

16. Without You—RENT

Without you, the hand gropes, the ear hears, the pulse beats.
Without you, the eyes gaze, the legs walk, the lungs breathe.
The mind churns, the heart yearns, the tears dry, without you.
Life goes on, but I’m gone, cause I die, without you.

God knows that she should leave him. She should walk away and leave him where he’ll be safe, away from her. But she can’t bear to be without him.

17. Turning—Les Miserables

Turning, turning, turning through the years
Minutes into hours and the hours into years.
Nothing changes. Nothing ever can
Round about the roundabout and back where you began.
Round and round and back where you began!

So this is the end, she thinks, bolt upright in their bed with one hand on her swollen belly and one in Malcolm’s as he tries to comfort her. This is the end, right back where she began… she’s frightening him, but she can’t stop crying.

18. Evermore Without You—Woman In White

Nevermore alone
Never to forget you
Not when my life was changed forever the first time I met you
You're all I know
And though I've lost you you're someone I can't let go of

She is buried wearing her wedding ring, as she’d wanted; he touches his surreptitiously at the funeral, and knows that he will wear it forever.

zip