Meadow: A Sopranos Fanfic

Stone & Marble, Marble & Stone

Meadow sat quietly on the 3rd row bench of the dark, empty church, admiring her surroundings with a coffee in hand. She hadn't thought about her father in a long time, everything that had lead to this moment had required restraint and focus that was crucially dependent on executing the plan by the numbers and without mistakes; a plan that had been set in motion 6 years prior by her and Silvio. In short, she hadn't had enough time to think about anything other than this, let alone let it all sink in. But she was thinking about him now as she stared at the marble and stonework of the building.
As always, the voice of Silvio Dante, the personified embodiment of the problem solving part of her psyche, was adamant about interrupting her daydreams before they took her away from the task at hand; and this time was no exception.
Silvio's voice was clear and to the point, like a badass Jiminy Cricket. "Stay focused," it said, "If you really want to do this, you need to stay calculated, and alert - at all times. None of this day dreaming is gonna cut it. Ok?"

"Ok Sil. Ok," she whispered to herself, listening for an echo within the silence of the church, and smiled. It hadn't always been familiar and positive with Uncle Silvio. Just convincing him to hear her out originally had required a strategy that could've cost her her life, no matter who's daughter she was.
"No. No way," he had said,  the ends of his mouth curved down so far she thought his face would break, "If your father were still alive today and heard what you just told me, Meadow he'dve had my head on a spike. This, whatever you call it. - plan? This won't work miss, so best go back home, take a breather and, think this through - cuz this? This ain't happening."
What she didn't know was that secretly, Silvio had been expecting a similar albeit dumbed down proposition from AJ the moment he had woken up from his coma to find out his brother in this thing, Tony, was gone. It had been a bit surprising that instead of AJ it had been her, but the harder he had thought about it, the more it made sense. It had always been Meadow. It was always going to be Meadow.
Everyone knew and had always known deep down that the one born with the gene had been Meadow Soprano. "You're like that fire girl on that dragon show," he had once said, getting a good laugh out of it, "the Kalahassee or whatever.  You know, she let Aquaman pour the gold all over her brother's head.
"People? They see you like that. They see you... a little different, small, weak, but you don't take no shit from them! You're a dragon. That's all I'm trying to say."

Like Lady Shylock before her, Meadow had become something more than a mobster's daughter, and one of the very few women outside of Sicily to make it into this thing of ours.
The catalyst of her new life was born the moment everything had gone to black, and the byproduct of that blackness was unadulterated rage. Sil saw it right away, even before she had asked for the first sit down 6 years ago. He had realized that he wasn't dealing with the little girl he had loved to hug, or break balls with anymore... he was dealing with... What was it that Jewish fruit cake called em? Oh yea. A Golem.
Silvio knew after that meeting, the first of many, that the death of her father had broken the part of Meadow which had, up until then, kept her from jumping the moral line between good and evil. The gene had begged her to cross that line her entire life, but she just couldn't understand fully the reasons her father would choose to listen to that dark voice inside and accept this type of life. Now she could understand him, and that's all it took to gray the line.
Had it been AJ, Silvio would've rejected him right out of the gate; the kid just didn't have it in him. But the reason why Meadow's resolve beat out his own was simple: Tony's death had washed away her kindness, her resolute strength to look out for those in need, her respect for life, it was all gone and he knew it because he had seen it in dozens of guys over the years. Hell, he had seen it in his own face when staring into a mirror, and he knew that after going down this road, there wasn't any turning back.
And so if all that was left of Tony's beautiful girl in the wake of his death was a Golem, he knew he had an inherent responsibility to step in and help... or clip her; knowing that if he didn't step in, the monster they had all created would be damned if it didn't swallow them whole, just as Tony, while still alive, almost had.
Whoever said life wasn't like a movie had never lived in the shoes of a Soprano.