A grown bean's @gt-obsessive 's side blog for scribbles & clicks. I have 3 size related universes: Hazel and Ben as a "grown up borrowers" love story, Jane and Betsy who are a young lesbian couple in the 1970's and one happens to be able to grow hundreds of feet tall, and a trio of morons (Zoey, Tyler, Jennifer) I do one-off ideas that don't fit in the other two with varying sizes and situations.
My writitng is 100% human made and features adult themes, mental health challenges, relationships, LGTBQIA+, language, nudity, touching, and desires. SFWish but rated R - Not for Minors and Kids. Content warnings come with every story. he/him call me Kitt if you must
After lurking for years in the g/t community — doing role plays here and there, consuming art and stories, and generally having that oomph feeling in the pit of my stomach with anything size related — I figured it was time to contribute.
I love size descriptions and all that but I've also rarely seen certain "realistic" elements blended into g/t stuff. So I decided to do it myself.
My writing is 100% human made and features adult themes, adult language, mental health challenges, romantic relationships, primarily LGTBQIA+ characters, bodies/nudity/kissing/touching, and desires (but no outright smut).
Rated R - Not for Minors and Kids - but SFWish.
Content warnings come with every story.
So far I have three g/t worlds.
***
Table of Contents and details for each below:
Art by the wonderful @guaxinimraccoon from the start of Unstuck Together.
- Unstuck Together
(finished & being rewritten/edited on AO3 here)
About a very tall, nervous human who meets a very smart, small borrower as they both deal with their own trauma and slowly fall in love.
Art by the amazing @kardamonich — some moment of Jane and Betsy together
- Come Back Down
(in-progress)
About two girlfriends trying to make their way through their young lives in the 1970's and one has a "compulsion" that makes her unexpectedly grow gigantic.
- Zoey's Size Shenanigans
(one offs w/ a trio)
Literally nothing connecting these other than it's the same 3 characters, and one is always either tiny around humans or human around giants.
Begging on my knees for more Ben and Hazel 🙏 just binged all of your Unstuck Together writing and loved it!!
TYSM!
I love them so much.
I have 2 more arcs for them roughly sketched out but I haven't started writing anything of those yet.
I wanted to revise the first one on Ao3 that is going to be a lot "better" with some major changes, expansions, and scenes I didn't get around to the first time:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/76079846
I've been so busy I stopped after their second night but want to get back to revising soon there's a lot of changes to make.
Jane finds out there are even more secrets that have been kept from her, including one that changes everything.
I love Jane *so much* yet I make her suffer so much.
Content Warning: Adult themes and language, A LOT of suffering, angst, moments of terror and hurt.
Word Count: 5,100
***
After getting fully dressed, Jane followed Betsy down the stairs. Or rather, Betsy guided Jane down the stairs by holding on to her far larger hand by the fingers. Betsy gripped Jane as if she might disappear if they lost contact for even a second.
As soon as they opened Betsy's door, they heard several voices from downstairs. Betsy tried to make out what they were saying while she waited in the hallway for Jane, not letting go of one of her hands. Jane was struggling to duck way down and shimmy to get out from the small bedroom with all of her aches and pains. She finally did.
As they descended the steps together, they could make out what was being said and who was saying what. Doctor Cohen and Betsy's father were going back and forth rapidly, with Betsy's mother occasionally interjecting. Betsy didn't like what she was hearing in the bright mid-morning.
Betsy came into the living room first, with Jane, who had to duck and crouch the last few steps, following after still in tow. Jane always thought that the Carters' modern-looking, architectural house seemed very out of place for their town. But once her compulsion started, she was grateful for the abnormally high ceilings. She managed to stand fully upright rather comfortably at this size.
At least as high as she could while still letting Betsy hold onto her hand.
"Jane!"
Bobby, who was hidden from view amongst Betsy's four younger sisters, stood up from a large couch and ran over to her. He swerved around Betsy and clung to Jane's leg in a tight embrace. Jane bent down a bit and pressed her other hand against his back in a makeshift hug she'd done in all kinds of varying sizes.
"You were awesome! You kind of blew it at the end there, getting swept up in those rapids like that, but you can work on that for next time. I knew you were a superhero," Bobby muttered into her jeans.
Jane smiled.
"Or something...I guess—but I don't think there'll be a next time..."
Jane would have said more, but she trailed off at the looks she saw on the older adults' faces staring back at her.
"Janey, are you hungry at all? I can fix you something if you want—"
Mrs. Carter separated from her husband and the doctor and walked over to Betsy and Jane. It sounded like she was trying to change the subject. Betsy bent down as her mother neared and received a peck on the cheek and a brief hug. Mrs. Carter turned her attention up to Jane, who suddenly looked like a deer in the headlights at the attention.
Jane noticed the whole house smelled like Mrs. Carter had cooked a breakfast worthy of a full diner from the stairs. But the thought of food right now made Jane a little queasy.
Jane shook her head quickly, Bobby still clinging to her.
"No thank you, Mrs. Carter, I'm still not...I'm not hungry. I haven't—maybe later?"
Betsy squeezed Jane's fingers and smirked at her girlfriend's inability to ever give her parents a definitive no after all of these years.
"Mrs. Rosen dropped him off earlier and said she'd be happy to let him stay with her as long as he wanted. He had gone to her place for the television as soon as you left for the dam. After you called on the payphone, we dialed her and asked if she could bring Bobby."
Mrs. Carter reached a hand over and ran it over the top of Bobby's head.
"She would have stayed, but she said she felt lightheaded and needed to rest. She should have just called, and I would have gone over to get him for her, but...she's a very proud woman. She asked you to come see her tomorrow."
Jane nodded forcefully, and Betsy squeezed Jane's fingers again, trying to get her to relax a bit.
"She's so glad you're alright. We all are. She asked me to tell you that you were wonderful and she's so proud. We all think you did, Janey. You are a hero, maybe even a superhero like Bobby said."
Doctor Cohen and Mr. Carter were staring at Jane in total silence. They may have agreed, but it didn't show on their faces. Jane nodded again at Mrs. Carter and patted Bobby on the back to let go as she looked at them.
Betsy noticed the expressions on her father's and Doctor Cohen's faces as soon as she entered the living room. She hadn't taken her eyes off of them since. She'd been returning their gaze, equally silent. She knew that look from her father. It was something major.
"Susie, can you—"
Before Betsy had finished, Susie had already picked up on the same subtle signals from their father. The pair of older sisters exchanged a knowing glance at one another.
"Hey! Rugrats! Follow me; there's ice cream in the kitchen that needs to get eaten before it goes bad."
"But it's 10 in the morning?" The youngest Carter child, Wendy, wondered from her spot on the couch.
"So?" Bobby ran towards the kitchen without saying more.
Betsy silently mouthed "Thank you" to Susie while she quickly ushered Wendy and Pattie out of the living room to the kitchen on the other side of the house.
Mrs. Carter, still standing next to Jane and Betsy, crossed her arms in anticipation. Mr. Carter and Doctor Cohen were standing ten feet away, half facing each other and half facing the girls.
As soon as Bobby and the younger sisters were out of earshot, Betsy started.
"What is it?"
"Betsy—"
"No! You don't get to tell her what to do, Dad, or you, Doctor Cohen."
Betsy glared at them, and Jane looked confused.
"But—"
"Everyone knows about Jane now. Or at least everyone knows that there's someone with...Jane's ability out there. I'm sure some of the people around here have already put two and two together. There have been—"
Mr. Carter paused briefly, searching for the exact right words, like he was presenting in a courtroom.
"Extraordinary circumstances over the years in and around this town that were inexplicable. But now..."
Jane swallowed hard. The dam was one thing. But when she really thought about it, she realized just how careless she'd truly been over the years. Saving cats from trees, delivering hundreds of Christmas trees in a few nights without a truck, and all kinds of other little gestures, or what she thought she had a responsibility to do because only someone her size could, mounted up.
They'd all been risks. And not even very calculated ones. When something came up, Jane just acted. She hadn't really thought it over beforehand other than not getting caught in the moment.
All of those little things would add up in people's minds into something big. Namely—her. She couldn't guess how many people in town, in her school, and all around the county must have known immediately exactly who they were seeing on the news no matter how impossible it might have been.
And to make matters worse, her telltale red braid had been swinging in plain sight. She'd worn a hat from Cumberland Farms and one of the outfits she wore all of the time and was wearing right this very moment...
What have I done...? Jane thought to herself, feeling the accumulation of all of those little acts pushing down on her more than the dam.
As if she could read Jane's mind, Betsy squeezed Jane's hand in the quiet moment. Betsy stepped back closer to Jane, emphasizing that she was between Jane and anyone else. Standing in the living room, Betsy may have been half Jane's size, or even a bit less, but she'd always be ten times as fierce.
They were in this together.
"And?"
"And as we were discussing before you joined us..."
Betsy and her father exchanged a look that made him smile.
"We made plans years ago for just such an unfortunate occasion. I don't know whether to feel relieved or worried that we have to actually follow through with them now."
Mr. Carter smiled at his headstrong eldest, seeing the tension leave her shoulders. No judge would ever match the level of scrutiny he typically had to endure from his own child.
"You did?"
"Yes," Doctor Cohen finally spoke up.
Mr. Carter walked over to a side table and picked up a large manila envelope. He walked it over to Betsy, who finally let go of Jane's hand so she could take it and open it.
It was heavy and thick, filled with documents.
"Wait. What is this? Is this?" Betsy asked, confused, as her eyes scanned over the words in the stack that she had slipped halfway out from the folder.
Mr. Carter put a hand on his daughter's shoulder.
"We never... Afterwards, we—it was your dad, Jane, who asked us to do it..."
Mr. Carter looked at his wife, who looked silently back, then at Betsy and Jane, clutching her chest and trying to keep her composure.
"But this doesn't make any sense! Jane and I were in...the first grade. She didn't grow for the first time for years after...this." Betsy looked up at her father after doing the math in her head from the date on the birth certificate.
"It was a few days after it happened, after the service. He came to check on how we were doing and brought Jane over for a playdate with you." Mr. Carter looked from Jane to Betsy as he spoke.
"He told us everything. He'd already spoken to Ezra about it, who was just waiting for our consent to falsify the official medical records as the delivering doctor. When we heard his story and what he'd been through...we both agreed."
"He told you? Everything?"
Jane's eyes were watering at the idea that even more people than she realized knew before she did.
"Yes. He didn't want to keep anything from us after asking for something like this. He shared the experiment and what he and your mother worried about with you. Your compulsion—"
He saw the hurt look on Jane's face and adjusted.
"Not to ward us off from you or anything! No. No. No. None of us ever worried about you in that way. Your father, all of us really, have only ever worried for you, Jane."
"But...you knew? All of these years?" Jane was trying to process yet another revelation about her life hiding in plain sight.
"I thought it was some kind of joke in poor taste at first. It seemed so fantastical. But he took me down to that lab he'd made in the fallout shelter under your barn. It seemed like far too much effort for a hoax."
"That's why when I first grew...neither of you seemed that shocked."
"Well, it was still quite shocking, for sure, but it wasn't unexpected. But back then during the pregnancy...I mean, after. When we —"
Mr. Carter looked at his wife before going on. She nodded while wiping her eyes.
"When he came to us and told us about the military and your mother and everything else and suggested this—we both agreed. If something good could come out of something so terrible...we would have agreed even if you two hadn't become so...close."
Mr. Carter had let go of Betsy's shoulder and went to his wife, who was trying to hide that she was quietly crying. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly for several long moments. Jane shifted uncomfortably while Betsy kept rifling through the papers.
"But—I don't understand. What did he ask?" Jane was trying to look at the papers in Betsy's hands, but the print was so tiny to her it was impossible to read.
"It's my sister... She would have been my sister. She..."
"We had a pregnancy between Pattie and Susie. There were...complications."
Mrs. Carter pressed her face into her husband's sweater. He stopped talking and held her tightly again.
Understanding clicked in Jane's mind. She'd always wondered why there was such a big age gap between Betsy's two middle sisters. She had asked Betsy about it in middle school, once out of curiosity, but Betsy kept talking about something else like she hadn't heard the question. Now she knew why.
"I thought Charles was crazy when he told me about it. I thought it sounded like something in a bad spy novel. But he was always a few steps ahead of me. Being the only doctor in a small town has its advantages occasionally. I just never thought—"
Doctor Cohen wasn't choosing his words as carefully as Mr. Carter had earlier. He saw John's face, and his stomach dropped at his insensitivity.
"I did everything I could, but there's only so much any doctor can do. Afterwards, instead of registering a death with the state, I registered a birth. Outside of town no one would be the wiser. If Jane ever needed to disappear, it could be a clean identity to make a new start."
"For all of these years, we have been legally maintaining that we have SIX daughters—not five."
Jane and Betsy were both equally stunned.
"Janey, that was the worst day of my life. The worst day I will ever have. There were bad days that followed, including yesterday when we thought we'd lost you too. But nothing like that. Ever."
Mrs. Carter pushed away from her husband a bit and looked up at Jane, who was having a very hard time keeping it together herself.
"Even if you and Betsy weren't an item, you've become as much of a daughter as someone could be that I didn't bring into this world myself. I'm sorry it doesn't look like it right now, but you can't imagine how good it makes me feel to know that making that decision back then can help you now."
Jane sucked her lips into her mouth, trying to hold back tears. Not just for the sorrow in Mrs. Carter's voice but that she'd do this for her sake without expecting anything in return. It made her feel a bit better about all of the times she'd used her compulsion to help without expecting anything in return.
Jane quickly wiped her eyes with the palm of her free hand and cleared her throat.
"I don't know what to say. I never knew. I'm so sorry."
Mrs. Carter nodded and stayed silent, standing with her husband. Doctor Cohen lit a cigarette. Betsy leaned back against Jane's leg as she rifled through the papers. There was a birth certificate, a Social Security card, and all manners of files and records. On paper, Betsy's lost sister had existed ever since her actual death.
"Marcy?" Betsy finally asked.
"It's not the name we would have picked. Somehow that made it a little easier for us. I hope it's alright?"
Mrs. Carter looked up at Jane as if she might not like it. Jane nodded quickly down at the tiny woman with a tenuous smile, still trying to keep from crying.
"It's a good thing you're so short. Well, normally I mean, it'll help you pass for being a few years younger. So what happens next? Jane is going to pretend to be Marcy Carter?" Betsy was thinking out loud and carefully slipped the papers back into the large envelope.
"What happens next is that you're going back to school, young lady. First flight. Day after tomorrow."
Betsy's eyes went wide at the matter-of-factness in her father's tone.
"Dad, there's absolutely no way I am leaving. Not while Jane—"
"Jane is going with you, no. Marcy is going with you," Mrs. Carter chimed in, cutting off her daughter.
"What?" Jane and Betsy gasped in unison.
"You are getting out of this town as fast as possible. And you're never coming back. Do you understand? If anyone asks about you, you disappeared a while ago. Before the dam. And none of us can figure out where you might have gone," Mr. Carter added.
"But—"
"Janey, it's the only way. You must see that."
"But Bobby—"
"I've already taken care of that too." Mr. Carter let go of his wife and went back to the same side table and picked up a legal file in a green folder.
"What do you mean?" Jane dropped down onto the knee that didn't hurt. Even though she was nearly three times her usual size, it still felt like everyone forgot she was in the same room as they talked. She hoped lowering herself would help.
"We have plenty of room here, and we'd love to have him. John always wanted a boy. He's been so unfairly outnumbered all of these years. I think it'd be just as good for him." Mrs. Carter laughed, wiping her face and shaking her hands dry in the air.
"But—"
"I spoke with your mother yesterday. Well, Bobby's mother, to be precise. I gave her a choice."
Mr. Carter opened the folder and held it out to show Betsy and Jane as if Betsy were Jane's manager.
"It's a motion to have the court declare her an unfit parent. There's ample evidence to support it, but this was just the stick. She took the carrot. And I called in some favors and already spoke with the right people about the adoption paperwork. There won't be an issue with that either."
"What carrot?" Betsy snapped back.
"I gave her money."
"Dad!"
"What's the point in having it if you don't use it?"
"But—" Jane felt like everything was happening way too fast and this was all too much.
"We will figure out something so that you can see each other on the holidays and summers, but not here. Never here. Again. For all intents and purposes, Jane Parsons is gone." Mr. Carter spoke with a kind of finality that Jane felt in her bones.
She swallowed hard and felt like she might throw up.
"But—look at me!"
Jane shouted louder than she intended, making her voice carry through the whole house, but she kept going.
"I can't get on a plane like this! Or go to a city! A city? After what happened the other summer? It's too dangerous with my compulsion. I can't! There has to be something else!"
Betsy turned around to look at Jane and gestured for her to lower her voice. Jane stopped and sucked her lips in embarrassed before going on.
"Can't I just stay in the woods or something?"
Everyone, including Betsy, looked at Jane as if she had suggested wearing a fake mustache and glasses would be enough.
"Janey...” Betsy stepped back when Jane collapsed onto the floor, sitting cross-legged with a heavy thud.
"Bets, I can't! You know what might happen..."
Jane gripped her knees and looked at the back of her hands, feeling ashamed. Betsy grabbed onto the sides of Jane's cheeks and pulled her face up. Their eyes locked, and Betsy pulled Jane's head into a hug.
"We'll figure it out together, okay? We always have, we always do, and we always will," Betsy whispered.
Betsy pushed Jane's long, unbraided hair out of her face, tucking strands behind her big ears. Betsy felt like she was moving stage curtains made of fire.
"There's a pill."
Doctor Cohen piped up again. He had wandered a little away from the group to find an ashtray and seemed to have resumed his default status of chain-smoking. Jane wondered how many he was on at this point in the conversation. Jane thought she misheard him.
"There's a pill?"
Doctor Cohen nodded and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a medium-sized, glass pill bottle. He shook it, making the contents clink against the glass, while he ashed the cigarette in his other hand into the tray beside him.
"Well, I made it into one. During the program it was an injection that was developed once they learned enough about the new element. They called it a countermeasure."
Jane's eyes were glued to the bottle, but she was having a hard time perceiving anything else as Doctor Cohen kept talking.
"The U.S. military wasn't about to make some kind of super soldier without making sure they could control them. Once they had succeeded, the plan was to give them the countermeasure every day because it'd be hard to force someone ten times your size to take a pill if they weren't compliant. When it was time to deploy, the daily injection would be a placebo instead that wouldn't inhibit the effect—something like just a vitamin shot or saline."
Of all of the things that Doctor Cohen had revealed to her this past year, including who her real mother was, this was the hardest one to take. Jane still thought maybe she'd misheard him. It couldn't be that easy. Betsy stared at him, not as confused but just as shocked.
"But where did—" Betsy started before the doctor cut her off.
"After he had...Jane's dad left the formula for me in his lab bunker. He made it paint-by-numbers; otherwise, I would never be able to follow it."
"There's a pill?" Jane repeated, slowly, dumbfounded by his words that rattled inside of her head. Jane's heart was pounding, and she was having a hard time breathing.
"Your dad thought they should have given it to you when you were younger, but your mother refused because she was worried about what it might do to your natural hormones. But when you started showing, your dad figured out how to make it into a compounded medicine, and—"
Jane had stood up out of Betsy's grasp; her head hit the ceiling as she did. She didn’t cry out like she might have normally from such a bump. Her shaking hands were clenched at her sides into fists.
She was bigger. She was angry.
Betsy looked up at Jane as if she expected to see her burst through her parent's ceiling. She had never seen Jane look so mad. It scared her.
"Janey?"
"What. Are. You. Saying." Jane growled through her clenched jaw, truly towering over everyone and ignoring Betsy. Mr. and Mrs. Carter were even more alarmed than Betsy and had instinctively taken several steps backwards towards the kitchen.
Doctor Cohen seemed totally unfazed. He'd seen Jane's outbursts before. This wasn't his office. He wouldn't have to worry about an insurance claim. He pulled out a fresh cigarette to light it.
"I'm saying there's a pill that will keep your compulsion from acting up. It's a bunch of chemicals like potassium iodide and others even I have a hard time pronouncing. As long as you take it every day, and it's in your system, it will physically inhibit the receptors activated by the element's radiation or something like that. I'm not sure of the dosage. One a day should be enough, maybe two—"
Before he could finish speaking or even light the cigarette dangling between two fingers as he spoke, Jane had crossed the living room in one big step. She fell to her knees, landing with a house-shaking thud. If she hadn't, she would have burst through the ceiling because she got even larger as she moved.
She was quickly filling the entire living room.
One of Jane's enlarged fists slammed into the wall behind Doctor Cohen, and the other had grabbed him like a doll and lifted him up off of his feet into the air. Fortunately, the flagstone wall that he was standing in front of held when Jane's fist hit it. But between her drop to the floor and the punch, the whole house shook like there'd been a minor earthquake.
Mrs. Carter gasped, and Betsy rushed over to Jane. She was screaming at her to put him down. Betsy pulled at one back loop of Jane’s jeans as best as she could like a dog that was chewing something forbidden.
Doctor Cohen took half a second to collect himself. He locked eyes with Jane. She was shaking. But he was surprised as he did. Jane didn't look mad.
Her eyes were filled with tears, and her lips were twitching.
She looked utterly devastated.
"Give me one."
Jane booming voice ordered, holding out the hand she'd just used to punch the wall. Her knuckles were bloody and throbbing in pain. She didn't put him down on his feet yet despite Betsy's continued protests and pulls.
Doctor Cohen quickly struggled with the bottle, putting one in her palm. As soon as he did, he felt himself fall to the ground in a heap.
Jane slammed her palm against her open mouth, trying to feel for the tiny pill as she swallowed.
Everyone waited in silence, staring at Jane while she stayed on her knees like an enormous statue. Then, in a few seconds, Jane shrank down like a deflating balloon. Betsy was still pulling on her jeans and stumbled backwards as Jane collapsed, landing on her back on the carpeted floor in a huff.
Jane was still on her knees but fell forward, hunched over in a ball. She was tiny. Or rather, she was tiny for Jane, back to her normal five-foot stature. Her long, unbraided red hair was covering her face. Her back arched as she took deep, heaving breaths. She was sobbing uncontrollably.
"Janey!" Betsy scrambled up and ran over to her again. Betsy's hands hovered over her, afraid to touch her.
"I-I...I can't—I can't!" Jane shuddered, her words muffled and strained.
"Janey?" Betsy tried to pry Jane up out of a ball, but she wouldn't budge.
"Jane—" Doctor Cohen started, having pushed himself up off the floor, his back against the hard stone wall where he'd been standing.
"THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME?! YOU'VE HAD THESE?!"
Jane had bolted upright when she shouted, knocking Betsy on her back on the floor again. Doctor Cohen looked back at her, silent, unsure what he should say. Jane's frustration came out in an animal sound, her voice cracking, before she fell back onto the carpet in a sobbing mess.
Betsy struggled to get her arms around Jane's contorted form, but she finally did and pulled Jane up against her. She clutched her as tightly as she could. Jane buried her face against Betsy.
Jane shuddered until she ran out of breath, gasped for air, and kept silently sobbing and screaming into Betsy.
She was overwhelmed by the revelation.
All of her years of struggling and the worry and fear of hurting someone or something seemed to rush into her all at once. All of the things she had missed out on flashed through her head—the countless big things and all of the little things that came with being normal.
Normal.
She could have been normal. Her entire life would have been completely different. A pill a day was all it would have taken.
She had suffered so much for no reason. The constant annoyances and inconveniences. The irritations and workarounds. The dangers.
She'd spent all of her teen years never fitting in or feeling like she did. The entire world seemed like it was working against her. Built for everyone other than her. Everything was always too small, too restrictive, and too delicate. She never felt like she had any room to just be.
And when she was herself, compulsion running wild, it meant she couldn't be around people. Not without the worry of it instantly going wrong.
Except Betsy. There'd always been Betsy, no matter what.
"Jane?" Betsy asked, stroking Jane's head and glaring at Doctor Cohen.
Doctor Cohen didn’t dare look up from the carpet.
Betsy was even angrier at him than Jane might have been, but she was too concerned with Jane at the moment. Her eyes shot over to her father, who knew what her look meant immediately.
"I had no idea." Her father reassured her, telling the truth, and Betsy nodded.
Finally, Betsy pulled Jane back off of her, unused to how easy it was compared to the sizes she was used to Jane being. Jane took a deep, heaving breath in and looked at Betsy through tear-filled eyes between her sobs.
It broke Betsy's heart to see her like this...over this...because of this.
"I. LOVE. YOU."
Both of Betsy's hands slid up to hold onto Jane's cheeks. She was so small like this.
"I love you! Just like you are! Just like you have been! I wouldn't change anything about you, okay? Not. A. Thing."
Jane bit her bottom lip, and any control she'd regained was lost once more.
"You're so perfect, Janey. I don’t care if you’re five or fifty or five hundred feet tall. I love everything about you. I love you. And I am never leaving you again. You and me, forever and always. Deal?"
Betsy didn't wait for a response and pressed her lips into Jane's. She held onto the back of Jane’s smaller head and pulled Jane with all of her might into the kiss. Betsy didn’t let go for a long time. When she did, Jane went back to sobbing for a different reason.
She felt better.
Betsy's four younger sisters and Bobby stood in the hallway, having come out when they felt the whole house shake. Bobby was standing next to Wendy, the youngest of them and a few years younger than him. He raised up his hand to cover her eyes at the sight of Jane and Betsy making out.
Wendy swatted his hand away.
"Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how many times I've seen them do that?" Wendy protested and stepped away from him to keep him from trying to do it again.
Betsy kissed Jane again until she stopped crying. Then she pulled her lips away just enough so that the two of them could talk, the air between them mixing together. Each one's breath filled the other's lungs as Jane tried to get ahold of herself. After a few moments, Jane finally got a grip and pressed the side of her face against Betsy's chest in a sigh that cut off another cry.
"What now?" Jane whispered, not as softly as she thought.
"Oh, did they not tell you?" Pattie sounded mournful.
Jane and Betsy both turned to look at Pattie, surprised she knew something they didn't. Jane didn't know how much more she could take.
"We have to change her look, especially that long red hair everyone saw on the 6 o'clock news." Susie chimed in, her one hand pantomiming scissors cutting.
Betsy now looked like she might cry at her sister's gesture.
Doctor Cohen had slipped out of the room and out to the backyard patio. The cigarette he had been holding when Jane picked him up had broken in half and been abandoned on the Carter's living room floor. He struggled to get another one out of the pack, finally finding one intact. The others were crushed in his shirt pocket by Jane's big hand when she grabbed him.
She could have killed him. Easily. But she didn't. Maybe she should have. He felt awful.
His hands were shaking from adrenaline, but he finally managed to light his cigarette. He took a deep, long, first drag. He held it in and closed his eyes, tilting his head back up towards the bright morning sky.
He exhaled with a sigh.
"Some job I did, huh, Chuck?" He asked out loud as he stared up at the clouds, taking another drag from his cigarette.
Jane makes it back home with some help unknowingly in her dad's former footsteps.
Content Warning: Adult themes and language, fatal injury, nudity, angst and all that.
Word Count: 5,000
***
The phone rang once. Then again. And again.
Doctor Cohen got up out of bed and made his way shakily through the dark towards the beckoning sound. He picked up the receiver from the phone attached to a wall in the kitchen and put it to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Ezra!"
"Charlie? What...what time is it? Why are you—"
"I did it, Ezra."
"Did what? What happened?" Doctor Cohen's voice changed as he jolted awake.
"I—I found it. The archive. The rest of it, what Becca couldn't find. But I didn't... It got out of hand and..."
"Charlie? What did you do? What the hell did you do!"
"I burned it down. Or at least I hope I did. It'd be a real bad joke for the universe to play on me if I got shot after going through all that trouble and the damn thing didn't burn down."
"What?!"
"I burned it dow—"
"No, not that! Shot?! Shot, Charlie! You were shot?! WHERE?"
There was a long moment of silence that filled Doctor Cohen's soul with dread.
"It's—No... I don't... I'm not a medical doctor, but I don't think there's supposed to be a hole where I'm feeling one..."
"Charlie—go to a hospital!"
"NO! No. No. I CAN'T. If I go to a hospital, they'll find me and—"
"Charlie!"
"Ezra. NO! They can't find me. And they cannot find Jane. They can never find her! If they got me, then it would only be a matter of time before they found her. Becca would never forgive me."
Doctor Cohen swallowed and stayed silent, thinking of Jane's mother. He got up and started pacing back and forth as he listened, stretching out the phone cord as far as it could go each time, thinking of what to do.
"Fine. I'll come to you. Where are you? I'll be there as fast as I can."
"I managed to make it out of the city. I'm down at a payphone off Route 7 and 52. You won't get here in—Make it...make it look like it was a crash. An accident. Like Becca. Not...this...I wouldn't..."
Doctor Cohen covered his mouth with his free hand at the ghoulish prospect. He checked his watch in the dim kitchen light. He knew where Charlie was calling him from, but it was at least a half hour's drive to that payphone. It was worth a try. Maybe there would still be time.
"Charlie, I'm—"
"It shouldn't be possible," Charlie interrupted him forcefully. "There's a million reasons why Jane shouldn't—it doesn't matter. They can't get it. Not now. There's nothing left. They could run that program a million times, and they would never get the same result. They have no chance now."
Doctor Cohen managed to find a pack of cigarettes on the counter. He'd lit one and was smoking it down to the filter quickly as he talked and listened to Jane's father.
"It's better if I'm gone too when you think about it." Jane's father, Charlie, tried rationalizing what was ahead of him.
"Last loose end..."
"WHAT. ABOUT. JANE?"
Doctor Cohen's voice turned angry at his friend sounding so casual about his demise.
"She doesn't get to have a dad anymore now? Like Uncle Sam won't find some new terrible thing to use on people? Just keep pressure on it, and I'll get in the car right now!"
There was a very long, silent pause. Doctor Cohen tried to feel Charlie across the line—fearing the worst. Doctor Cohen collapsed into a kitchen chair. His wife, Audre, had woken up too and joined him standing at the kitchen threshold.
She knew everything she needed to from the look on her husband's face as he kept the phone glued in place.
"Had to...sit down... You won't—there's no... Fine. It's fine."
"Charlie..."
"You have to protect her, Ez. Keep her safe. They can't know about her, and they—Ah! Shit!"
Charlie's rambling was interrupted by his pain. He took several strained breaths in and out through the phone receiver.
"Don't do this to me, Chuck."
"I left some notes in the lab, in the fallout shelter. T-There's...instruments...to keep an eye on. You know wha—" He paused, the scientist in him drained from his voice.
"Look after her for me, Ez. Please? Make sure... Keep her safe."
Doctor Cohen had stopped pacing and stood with his arm crossed over his forehead, pressed into the wall next to the phone. He tried to come to terms with this being the last time he ever spoke to his best friend of twenty years. He wondered how it had all gone so wrong.
"I will. I promise. But Charlie, I'm on my way alright. I'll—"
"E...equals M. C. Squared."
"What?"
"Relativity. Energy...matter..."
"Matter isn't destroyed—it only changes... I'm—I'm g-going to go see Becca."
Jane's father stopped talking again. Doctor Cohen stopped breathing.
"I miss her. So much Ez. Now maybe I can—"
Charlie coughed hard into the receiver. Doctor Cohen stared through the wall, listening to the cough. He knew what it meant.
"Jane could be her twin, couldn't she? She's a good girl. She's strong. And smart. Best of both of us..."
There was another long silence. Doctor Cohen couldn't hear breathing anymore.
"Chuck?"
"Thanks, Ez. I owe you one."
"You owe me a lot. Just know the bill will come due one day. I plan to collect in person."
"I'm looking forward to it... But take your time. I'll see you on the other side."
Ezra Cohen squeezed the handle of the phone receiver as hard as he could until his hand and the phone shook.
"Take care, friend... I think that's her now..."
"Chuck?"
There was a click, and a dead tone filled the earpiece.
Charlie was gone.
Doctor Cohen slowly put the phone back on its cradle. He looked at his wife.
Audre's arms were crossed over her chest. She shook her head slowly as her eyes locked with her husband's. Doctor Cohen ran out of the kitchen to his car as fast as he could.
Eight years later, Jane felt every bump and turn filling the back seat, and then some, of Jacky's small green car. The inside cabin was quiet but for the radio turned way down. Jane couldn't even make out what was on.
"I don't mean to offend you or anything—but this is really weird. Is it weird for you? I mean, you said this just happens, but..."
Jacky finally broke the silence; her hands were glued at ten and two on the steering wheel like a good new driver, and her eyes kept darting from looking at the dark road ahead and the pair of gigantic red high tops taking up most of her dashboard.
"Yeah."
Jane felt awful and sore, and something seemed off. But even if that wasn't the case, Jane wasn't sure what else to really say. She'd never spent this much time around anyone other than the people who she grew up with and knew best. Especially not under these circumstances. It was far weirder for her than Jacky could ever imagine.
"Okay, well, I think we're almost there..."
Jacky trailed off, straining to see in the darkness on the largely empty road. They'd only come across two or three cars heading in the other direction. Jacky kept waiting to find the intersection and had never been this far out in the boonies before.
Jane made a grunting sound as she tried to adjust herself rather than say anything else. It turned painful, and she exhaled through her nose slowly at something in her side feeling sharp and uncomfortable. At least the pain kept her mind off of thinking about what everyone finding out about her meant. What would be different now, and what would never be the same again?
Once she started thinking about it, she groaned again.
"Are you okay?"
"No. Not really. I wasn't supposed to—"
Jane stopped talking. She didn't need to accidentally give any details by accident that Jacky might tell someone about later. She thought about the cops at the bar the other summer and what might have happened then. This seemed so, so much worse than having gotten caught then.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"No what? What do you mean you weren't supposed to? Supposed to what?"
There was an insistent edge to Jacky's tone, like she could guess what Jane was going to say but wanted to hear it from her. Jane suddenly felt very small.
"Nothing. It's complicated, and it's nothing you need to know or worry about, okay? Just please keep driving."
They went on a few more miles in silence. Jacky stared at the pair of enormous feet and suddenly felt bolder than she should talking back to something Jane's size.
"No. You know what? It is my business. You saved my life. You saved all of those people's lives. So what? You weren't supposed to do that? To save me? Them? Like we don't matter enough? Is that what you were going to say?"
Jane shifted, feeling a lot more uncomfortable than she did a moment ago. She should have walked.
"No, it's...I said it was complicated. People aren't supposed to know...about...me. That I can get big."
"That was a lot more than big."
Jacky was quick and flippant.
"But who cares? The worst thing I figure is that you'll just have to do that a lot more often now. Like they'll do something like that Batman show and get a special phone for when they need..."
Jacky stopped, realizing she had no idea what Jane's name was or what to call her.
"Uh...gigantic...lady? Girl? How old are you? You look a little older than me."
Jane stayed quiet. Jacky seemed nice. It made Jane wonder what things would be like if she didn't have her compulsion. Would they have ever met otherwise? Would they have gotten along?
"Oh...we're here."
Jacky slowed down and pulled the car over to the side of the road, putting it in park and turning off the engine. Jacky got out to try and help, but Jane was too heavy to do much more than offer moral support.
When Jane finally popped out of the passenger-side door, she nearly fell over onto the ground. She caught herself at the last minute, surprised at how off balance she felt.
Something wasn't right. This should be a lot easier.
Jane steadied herself by putting a hand on the roof of Jacky's car. She took a few deep breaths and pushed off of it, standing fully upright. Jane looked down at Jacky's shocked face below.
Jacky's eye level was at Jane's navel. Jane hoped whatever was going on inside of her head would wear off like her size usually did. She felt nauseous again.
"Thank you." Jane ran the back of her hand across her forehead as she spoke, looking down at Jacky's still stunned expression.
"Y-You're welcome."
Jacky found it a lot different to be in front of Jane looking up at her like this than when she'd been contorted in the back seat. Jane had been so gigantic that it didn't seem like she was even real. A friend of hers took a family trip to the Grand Canyon, and seeing Jane reminded her of how the friend had described seeing that—not real.
It was impossible to make sense of what you were actually seeing.
Something just like that was at the dam and is now standing right in front of her. Jane was very real. And big.
Jane looked around. She knew there was a phone booth nearby, somewhere, but she didn't see it from where she was standing.
"I'm sorry, Jacky. Can I—"
"Oh...uh, yeah?" Jacky snapped out of it.
Jane hated charity and scrunched up her face at not having a choice.
"Can you spare a dime? I don't... I didn't bring any money with me..." Jane asked, shutting one eye as she did to see if that would make the smaller girl stop spinning in her view while she towered over her.
"Oh! Sure! Of course!" Jacky walked back over to the driver's side of her car and rustled through her purse.
She came back to Jane and held up her closed hand. Jane lowered her huge open palm. Jacky dropped an entire handful of dimes into it.
"Oh... No. Jacky. I just nee—"
"Seriously? You saved my LIFE. I owe you. The least I can do is give you enough change to make as many phone calls as you want."
Jane closed her hand gratefully and stuffed Jacky's little handful of dimes into one pocket of her jeans.
"Will I see you again sometime? I mean, like, you normal? Not like..." Jacky raised both arms up over her head in a gesture of size.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope not..."
Jacky nodded and waited a second. Then she threw open her arms and wrapped them around Jane's waist as best she could. Her hands couldn't touch on the other side of Jane's huge torso.
Jane's hands flew up in surprise. Then she lowered one and patted Jacky's back a few quick times. Jacky squeezed harder. It felt better than Jane expected. She could use a hug.
Jane pressed her hand against Jacky's back in return.
"Thank you for not doing what you were supposed to do."
Jane's breath hitched in her throat, and she bit her lower lip to keep from tearing up. It was the first time in a long time with anyone other than Betsy that her compulsion seemed like a good thing.
Finally, Jacky let go. She nodded and looked up at Jane. After a long moment, Jacky made her way back to the driver's seat. She crouched inside briefly and re-emerged.
"Here. Just in case you change your mind..." Jacky reached around to Jane's backside and shoved a folded piece of paper into her pocket.
She looked up at Jane one last time, then got in her car, started it, and slowly drove away.
Jane watched the little green car drive off and stumbled away looking for the payphone. She found it after a few minutes of searching. It was on the other side of a telephone pole. She couldn't see it before.
Jane got down onto the knee that wasn't throbbing and lifted the tiny receiver up with her fingers. She heard the dial tone.
Jane reached into her back pocket and, with a lot more effort than she expected, plucked out a dime. It took a few attempts, but she finally pushed it into the slot.
She started to dial Betsy's home number. Jane heard the unmistakable sound of several buttons being mashed at once. She looked at the tiny numbers compared to her finger.
She sighed. She really needed to figure out why she was so off-kilter. She'd felt off since she woke up on the riverbank. She hoped it was getting her ass kicked by the river and not some new weird thing.
Jane looked down at the ground searching. She found a twig that looked like it would work. She went to retrieve the dime that returned when she hung up, but she couldn't get her finger into the slot.
It was a good thing Jacky had given her so many of them. Jane went through the whole process again, this time using the stick to press the small numbers. It worked. She heard the phone ringing on the other end.
"Hello?"
Jane's heart dropped. It was Mr. Carter. She knew it wouldn't be Betsy, but she couldn't help but wish it had been. Jane needed her now more than ever.
"Hey, Mr. Carter—"
"Jane! Ja—It's Jane!"
Jane could hear him telling whoever else was there that it was her. She guessed Mrs. Carter and maybe some of Betsy's younger sisters.
"Where are you?!"
"I'm at a payphone down at Route 7 and 52...and—"
"How in the world did you... Never mind. Stay there. Stay there! I'm on my way."
About an hour later, the Carter's blue truck came to a stop in the Carter's driveway. Betsy's father hurried out of the driver's side and raised his hands to try and help Jane out of the truck bed. She waved him off.
"I don't want to hurt you..."
She still felt dizzy and didn't trust herself like she normally would. This was usually a pretty easy size to manage, but it wasn't worth the risk. Jane hauled herself out of the truck with several grunts and moans. She stood up and slowly made her way towards the backyard.
"Jane, where are you going?"
"Oh, I—I'm big, so I didn't think..."
"Jane, go inside. Go inside."
Mr. Carter closed the distance between them and raised a hand to her lower back, pushing, to usher her into the house. Jane didn't put up a fight and followed his lead.
"Janey! THANK GOD! Are you alright?!"
Mrs. Carter came rushing to the open front door, her hands waving frantically in front of her. She ran into Jane's legs and pressed her body against her.
"Thank God. Thank God. We're so proud of you. That was amazing. You saved all of those people!"
Jane listened to Mrs. Carter and thought again. Her face shriveled from everything that had happened since she left her barn. She collapsed in place where she stood, making Mrs. Carter jump back. The chandelier above her in the high-ceilinged foyer jingled from the force of her dropping weight.
"Janey?"
Mrs. Carter stepped towards her, putting a tiny hand on her shoulder. Even on the ground, Jane's was taller than Betsy's mother's. But it made it a lot easier to talk to her.
Jane heaved and gasped, trying to talk, breathe, and cry at the same time. Mrs. Carter wrapped her arms around her as best she could and hugged her, shushing her.
"It's going to be okay, Jane. Don't worry. John and Doctor Cohen have already talked. They've had a plan for a long time coming now."
Jane's uncontrolled wave of emotions slowed down as she heard Mrs. Carter. After a few minutes she was only breathing heavily, whimpering a bit after each exhale, but she was better than before.
She didn't try to look at or push Betsy's mother away and instead talked into her shoulder as she spoke.
"What are you talking about?"
"Doctor Cohen told us about it. We can explain later. Right now we need to clean you up and get you some rest. Come on, you can use Betsy's room."
Jane looked at Mrs. Carter teary-eyed and nodded. Betsy's room would have to do for now instead of her. It was better than nothing.
After getting cleaned up, Mrs. Carter followed Jane's slow footfalls down the upstairs hallway. She stood behind Jane on one side. She had both arms raised as if waiting to catch Jane, but it was largely for show.
If Jane fell, Betsy's mother would not be able to catch her and keep her up, and she would probably get crushed in the process.
Jane had a large quilt wrapped around her, tucked under her armpits, as a makeshift towel. She felt bad about potentially getting it so wet, but Betsy's mother assured her it would be fine. The shower had been tricky.
She ducked under the doorframe with a wincing pain and lowered herself onto Betsy's bed.
Jane curled up into a fetal position, but her legs still hung off the bed from the knees down. She passed out as soon as her head hit the small pillows. They smelled like Betsy, and Jane smiled as she slept.
A few hours later, Jane was still fast asleep, dead to the world.
The front door to the Carter family home flung open.
Betsy ran into her house and up the stairs like a bolt of lightning.
She threw open her bedroom door, her hand still on the knob, and found Jane filling up her bed.
Betsy shuddered in relief, bringing one hand up to cover her mouth, stifling a cry. She didn't want to wake Jane. Betsy could see cuts and bruises all over her. Others were covered in bandages as best as her family could manage.
Betsy had to stop herself from crying again as she took it all in.
Janey...Betsy thought.
Betsy carefully and silently closed the door behind her. She tiptoed across her room to the bed. There was a sliver of space between Jane's broad back and the bedroom wall.
Betsy slid gently into the gap between the boulder of her girlfriend and a hard place.
Comforted by Jane being safe, Betsy let out a deep breath like she'd been holding it ever since the diner. She'd been in total agony ever since she looked up at that TV in the diner.
When she landed and frantically called her parents, she started sobbing in the airport when they told her Jane had somehow made it to the house. Betsy didn't know what was worse, the taxi and flight home or the far, far shorter trip from the airport to her house.
Betsy curled up and pressed herself into the quilt, still covering Jane's body like a towel, feeling Jane's warmth through it. She kissed the dry, rough fabric and sighed. She had never been more worried and more relieved at the same time in her life.
Betsy stayed silent and stared, as if Jane might disappear again if Betsy dared to look away.
"Women have loved before as I love now—"
Betsy whispered into the gap between her mouth and Jane's still sleeping back.
I think, however, that of all alive, I alone in such an utter, ancient way do suffer love...
Betsy finished the rest in her head. She fell asleep, keeping watch over Jane, utterly exhausted.
The morning sunlight eventually spilled in through Betsy's bedroom window and fell across Jane's face.
Jane woke but kept her eyes closed as she always did. Jane remembered where she was now.
Jane took a deep, long breath in. It smelled like Betsy was actually in the bedroom too. Jane pressed her face into the pillow, hoping it made the scent stronger.
Jane stayed in bed but bent her knees, pulling her legs up. Her feet caught the end of the bed almost immediately. She wasn't back to normal yet. That wasn't how it usually went. Then again, she also had never gotten so big before.
Too big.
Maybe it was taking longer to wear off as well.
Jane opened her eyes and looked around at the things she knew so well in Betsy's room. As she did, she noticed, thankfully, that the dizziness seemed to be gone.
Bets...Jane thought to herself quietly.
Jane opened her eyes again and sighed. She noticed that her clothes had been cleaned, folded, and stacked into a neat pile just inside of Betsy's bedroom next to the closed door. Her big red shoes were beside them. She could see a small jar filled with dimes and the folded slip of paper with Jacky's name, address, and number placed into one of the shoes.
Jane smiled at the kindness. Jane knew she should get up and get dressed despite the comfort trap she found herself in. She was actually lucky she hadn't shrunk back down to normal. If she had returned to normal while she slept, her shoes and clothes would have had no chance of fitting her.
The few times that had happened, it was such a pain to try and grow and then shrink down again, over and over, to match sizes. By the third time she'd let it happen, it was so much effort that she'd considered just going naked, but she couldn't afford to go through clothes like that. Instead, Jane started always sleeping with her clothes and shoes on.
Jane rolled off the bed with a heavy thud and stood up. She crossed Betsy's bedroom in two steps, and the quilt-turned-towel fell off of her, landing on the floor.
Jane bent over the pile and unfurled her jeans. She pulled her jeans on one leg at a time, groaning. Everything felt worse than it did last night.
Betsy woke up and looked over at Jane getting dressed.
Jane took a break from getting dressed. She sat down on the carpet with a huff. After a moment, she reached over for her shoes. She removed the little jar of dimes and the slip of paper and slipped them on one at a time.
Jane's back was to the bed. Betsy silently watched Jane, overwhelmed with relief that she was there and alright.
Jane was tying up her second shoe when she felt a pair of arms slide over her shoulders, wrapping around her neck, and a body pressing into her bare back.
Jane sharply inhaled and twisted to look at Betsy standing there in the flesh. She'd been so out of it she hadn't even noticed her in the bed beside her.
Jane grabbed Betsy, wrapping her arms around her, and pulled her as close as she could. Betsy did the same.
They stayed like that for a long time.
Betsy raised her hands and ran them through Jane's long, unbraided red hair. It was like dipping her fingers through a waterfall made of cool fire over and over. It had been a long time since she'd seen her hair down without it being braided.
"Janey, there are easier ways to get me to come home than getting yourself on national television. Don't you EVER put me through that again!" Betsy softly, and half-jokingly, chided Jane.
Jane started softly sobbing into Betsy's chest. Betsy stayed still and held her. Sitting on Betsy's bedroom floor carpet, Jane's upper half was nearly the same height as Betsy standing.
Betsy shushed her and hummed, swaying a little with her as they held onto one another for dear life.
"I don't know what I would have done if you had—I was so scared, Janey. I've never been so scared in my life. I thought I'd lost you..."
Betsy pressed her cheek hard against Jane's forehead.
"I would have rather you'd stayed that big and stomped across the country like Paul Bunyan so I knew you were okay."
"I'm sorry," Jane spoke into Betsy's body, her words muffled.
"Don't."
"But—"
"Janey, don't. I know you didn't mean to, but you're okay. Nothing else matters."
"That was too big..."
"I know, Janey. I know..."
They stayed clinging to one another, as if they needed to touch to charge some invisible battery that they both needed to survive. And in the deepest parts of themselves, they both knew that without the other, there was no point or purpose in anything else.
"But if you hadn't gotten big like that, you couldn't have done what you did. You're a BIG hero."
Jane nuzzled into Betsy's torso, knowing she was trying to make her feel better.
"I'm not."
"Yes. You. Are. You saved all of those people. AND stopped the dam from failing. You're incredible. You've always been incredible no matter what size you are."
Betsy kissed the top of Jane's head. Jane pulled her face away and looked at Betsy. Betsy's hands cupped Jane's huge face, and she brought her lips in to kiss her deeply.
Jane let her.
It went on for longer than they had been holding onto one another.
Jane finally broke it off to speak.
"There's something else, Bets. Something different... It wasn't... I don't..."
Betsy cut her off as Jane struggled to articulate how she felt after. It almost felt like she was strobing between two places at once or something else that made everything seem distorted.
"It'll be okay. I mean, you've never gotten that big before. On TV you looked like you must have been three or four times bigger than last sum—"
"No! No. It's not just that..." Jane snapped but calmed herself, afraid she'd worry Betsy too much.
But Jane was scared too, and keeping it from Betsy wouldn't help.
"S-something is off. It's better now, but after... I don't know, but it wasn't right. It wasn't right..."
Betsy pulled Jane's massive head into her chest again and rested her cheek on the top of it.
"Whatever it is, we'll figure it out together, okay?"
"What about sch—" Jane's muffled voice got cut off by Betsy.
"Don't. Not after that. I don't care. I can't do anything else unless I know you're okay..."
Betsy squeezed Jane tighter, as if she was pleading for something magical to come from it that would make everything else go away.
"You've got to go back—"
Betsy pulled herself away and put a finger over Jane's lips, each one thicker than her finger.
"Later. Okay? Not right now, please."
Jane nodded, and Betsy removed her finger. They embraced again and closed their eyes, just breathing in and out with each other.
"Your mom said something about a plan?"
"Shush. I'm not done with this yet."
Jane didn't object. She wanted to be in this moment for as long as possible too.
Eventually, they let go of one another, their need sated for the time being. Betsy offered Jane a hand, but Jane shook her head, getting up herself. Betsy's neck craned up as she followed Jane's face up towards the ceiling.
"Let's find out what your parents were talking about."
Once up, Jane had turned around and was about to open the door when Betsy grabbed her other wrist with both hands.
"Janey?"
Jane stopped, her hand on the little doorknob, and turned around to look back at Betsy.
"Before you head downstairs..." Betsy's eyes darted down from Jane's face to her big naked chest.
Jane's freckles disappeared in a sea of crimson as her cheeks reddened instantly. She'd been so distracted by Betsy actually being there that she hadn't bothered to finish getting dressed.
Her shirt was still folded in a tidy square on the floor beside the jar of dimes and slip of paper.
She pulled out of Betsy's grip and frantically bent down to slip it on, one arm getting caught from the rush.
Betsy watched and bit her bottom lip, trying not to laugh.
***
Poem is "Women have loved before..." by St. Vincent Millay
Afterwards, Jane has to figure out how to get home with her new status as a global headline.
Content Warning: Adult themes and language. Lots of anguish. Physical injuries.
Word Count: 4,000
***
"No! Absolutely not! We're staying here!"
Ralph the chopper newsman yelled into his headset, hearing the pilot say they had to head back. The helicopter was were running low on fuel.
"I don't care if we crash! This is the story of the century! You stay up as long as possible, or you're fired!"
After a few more minutes, the helicopter began a controlled descent down towards an open patch of grass that looked safe enough for the pilot to touch down.
Ralph and the camerman leapt out of it and found a position where they could still broadcast Jane's struggle.
Jane had gotten so big that she weighed the same as the Empire State Building. As she struggled, her growth didn't stop. As long as she was there, the dam held.
Jane had fallen onto her ass and was now pressing her back against the dam, pushing with her legs. Her body was spreading wider and higher across the concrete surface.
But millions of gallons of water pushing against the weakening dam would always outweigh her. There was no possible hope for her to hold it back forever. Not entirely.
What Jane didn't know, and couldn't possibly have known, is that there were scores of engineers in the dam's control room and inner workings trying to get the jammed floodgates working.
Jane couldn't stop all of that water but she bought them precious time.
And they succeeded. The floodgates started working again and opened all the way. Water poured out from the reservoir. The pressure against the dam steadily decreased.
The water level in the spillway where Jane was surged higher and higher, turning the normally calm and controlled downriver into rapids. But everyone downriver would be safe from some minor flooding at most.
Jane had kept the dam from failing.
Jane was panting and kept pushing for all of her worth. Jane suddenly felt like she was sitting in the wet patch of a parking lot. She noticed water was rushing around and past her. It was coming out of the gates along the dam's entire width. Jane's body was actually blocking a few of them.
It must be working right again, because as the water flowed, the dam didn't feel like it was going to topple over anymore. She eased up.
Jane had slid down so low that it was primarily her shoulders only pressed against the dam. The rest of her had bent awkwardly to keep her weight steady against it.
She was exhausted.
The man with the megaphone was shouting into it at her, but there was no chance for her to hear. Jane didn't even notice to look over at him.
Instead she was confused as she looked straight ahead of her for the first real time since she'd begun pushing against the dam. Nothing looked right.
Jane struggled up off the spillway and stood upright.
And up. And up.
Jane tried to understand what she was seeing.
Then she realized what was wrong.
She looked down and felt a bolt of terror shoot through her gigantic body. Her breath halted as why everything looked and felt so off hit her like a truck.
Jane looked at the horizon and could see what seemed like forever into the distance. She even saw the city's skyline. Everything looked way, way too tiny. This was so much bigger than she'd ever been.
She couldn't guess how big she was, and she was scared to actually know.
She didn't dare move.
Jane suddenly saw the piece of graph paper back in her parent's lab flash in her mind.
"No limit..." Jane mouthed breathlessly, worried about how loud she would be if she spoke.
She was a weapon. She might as well be a loaded gun pointing in someone's face. That actually might have been safer than being this enormous.
One slight movement could decimate everything on the ground below. It took her mind a moment to reorient but she recognized that all of the little shapes were actually vehicles that she could have fit into this morning.
She looked down at all of the clusters of dots and nearly shrieked.
They were...people...
Jane started to shake in place and felt like she was going to freak out. She looked at her hands to see if that would help. It didn't, and she had to do something.
Jane shut her eyes and clenched her fists at her side. She focused entirely on willing herself to get smaller and smaller, harder than she ever. She heard and felt the sensations of her body in her silent desperation, hoping it was working.
SMALLER! Smaller! Smaller! Please!!! Jane cried in her head.
It worked. She was too afraid to do anything else but focus on shrinking out of fear that doing anything else would halt it too soon. She couldn't be so big.
Despite not checking, Jane was shrinking and shrinking faster and faster. And she didn't realize that she was putting herself in more and more danger. Jane didn't notice the raging water, pouring out of the floodgates, was getting higher and higher against her body.
She was at risk of getting swept away if she kept going at this rate.
But she kept getting smaller, and Jane descended, collapsing like a deflated balloon.
The next thing Jane knew, she was being pounded by the deluge from the dam. She'd succeeded, and she got knocked forward off her feet.
Jane disappeared under the choppy white surface of the temporary rapids created from all of the floodgates being fully opened all at once.
Small enough that she couldn't touch the bottom of the spillway anymore as she was carried from the dam. She'd gotten small enough that all of that water was beating her about like a rag doll.
Back in her hometown, Betsy's father, John Carter, answered the second phone on his office desk. He apologized to his wife, talking to her on the first phone, and hung up on her.
"Doctor...Yes, I'm sure you saw too..." John Carter, Betsy's father, answered and waited for Doctor Cohen to finish responding. He went on from behind his desk at his one-person law firm.
"Speaking as a parent myself, I think they'd be incredibly proud of her for making that decision in spite of what it may mean for—"
Mr. Carter stopped so Doctor Cohen could finish yelling.
"We've planned for this. I don't know why you're... Yes. Yes. You have the necessary paperwork I gave you all complete?"
Mr. Carter stood up and pulled his keychain out of his pocket. He walked over to a corner of his office, behind his desk, holding the telephone receiver between his chin and shoulder, still listening to Doctor Cohen. The cord stretched until it was taut as he pressed down on a seam in the wooden floor.
He lifted up the hidden door built into the floor, revealing a safe. He put a key from his chain into it and unlocked it. That opening revealed another, smaller safe with a combination. He quickly spun the dial to the proper numbers, making it click several times before unlocking. He opened that safe and pulled out a thick, sealed manila envelope.
"Yes. Yes. Everything will be ready. I can file them today with the court. We just have to find where she went..."
Back near the dam, Jane managed to suck air into her lungs a few times before getting dunked back down under the surface. She felt like she'd gotten so small she was inside a washing machine. She quickly lost the bandana and her hat.
Other news helicopters from rival stations were on their way, but they didn't arrive before Jane had disappeared into the water. The further she got from the dam, the fewer and fewer people there were downriver. Eventually, Jane was all by herself trying not to drown.
Hours passed, and everyone, other than Jane and the select few who knew about her, began processing what had happened and what they'd seen. Those who did know and love Jane were beside themselves trying to figure out what had happened to her.
Back at her school, Betsy stayed glued to the diner's television during the entire broadcast. It wasn't clear from her frozen face on the outside, but she was more surprised than any of them. Jane being big was nothing new. But this... This was a whole new league of huge for her girlfriend.
And now everyone knew about her, even if they didn't know exactly who she was.
Betsy watched in awe and horror as Jane got even bigger. Bigger than ever. Her heart ached as she watched Jane, the camerman having to point it straight up to capture anything other than her shins.
Betsy felt relief wash over her as Jane started shrinking down.
Come on baby you can do it... Betsy thought to herself, clenching a fist and silently cheering her on. Betsy knew if Jane could get to a size she could manage that everything would be ok. Somehow.
But then Jane disappeared into the raging water from the dam. Betsy shrieked making a few people turn to look at her.
It became clear from the newscaster that no one there knew what happened to her. They searched the water's surface with the camera but there was nothing.
Betsy grabbed her bag and bolted out of the diner.
Betsy ran through the streets for the first time since she'd started school, and it felt like she was going faster and harder than she ever had in her life. Her lungs and legs burned from being used like this after such a long period of neglect.
Betsy didn't care how much it hurt.
She had to get to Jane right now.
Betsy realized she needed to get to the airport and couldn't run all the way there. Distracted, she barreled into a pair of people and slowed down on the sidewalk. She looked into the road for a taxi. She saw one and jumped right in front of it.
A flurry of honks and screeching tires erupted. But the taxi stopped before running over Betsy.
"What the hell?!" The driver yelled out his window at her.
Betsy got into the back.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"
"SHUT UP! Here's a hundred dollars. Get me to the airport now and I'll give you another hundred!"
Betsy pulled the cash out of her bag and shoved it up at him. He blinked at the cash for a fare that would normally be ten or fifteen dollars at most. He drove off towards the airport as fast as he could.
Jane woke up and coughed harder than she'd ever remembered, gasping for air. She saw sand and gravel, and it took her a second to realize she was on the riverbank. She was somewhere downstream.
Everything hurt.
Jane pulled herself up onto her hands and knees and looked around. She had absolutely no clue where she was right now. Jane looked at her watch, but it had stopped, broken at some point. She was cold and had lost one glove. Her exposed hand was visibly shaking.
Jane coughed again and groaned, trying to stand up, but slipped and fell back down flat. She was soaking wet and her clothes were torn all over. She had cuts and bruises all over herself, most of them still covered.
Jane felt dizzy against the soft ground and thought she might pass out again. She wanted to but she knew she couldn't. She managed to stumble up and over to a nearby rock.
She pulled herself up and sat down on it, hunched over with her forearms across her knees. She looked around again, trying to figure out how big she was, but she couldn't really tell. The only good thing was that it didn't look like any other people were around that she could see.
It was getting dark... or was it getting light? She wondered how long she had been out.
Jane breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm herself down, but the view before she got swept away was burned into her eyes. It couldn't have been real.
"No limit... No god, that can't be... there has to be... that was too big..." she panted, her thoughts felt like a broken mirror.
Nothing felt or looked right. She sat on the rock trying to calm down.
How was she going to get home? It was easily an hour's walk back home from the dam at her normal size, if she was normal size. And now she had to worry about being recognized.
Jane stumbled away from the river. She was moving slowly. It felt like she twisted an ankle, and her one knee was throbbing and swollen. Jane's bottom lip was split and she ran her tongue over it tenderly.
She tasted her own blood and winced.
She looked to the left and right and then up overhead at the setting sun in the west. She started walking that way, figuring it'd be the general direction back home.
Jane kept off to the side of the road, but there weren't any cars or road signs. She kept waiting to find something that would make it clear how small she'd gotten.
The stars were out, but those didn't help. At least they were pretty.
Jane had learned over so many years by herself stuck outside, because she couldn't fit inside anywhere, to take comfort in moments like a good view.
Sometimes something like the sky tonight could even make her feel small. It was calming.
Jane saw approaching headlights and staggered further off to the side. She didn't need to add getting hit by a car on top of everything else.
She thought she should maybe try to hitchhike. Was she so big that it'd be a dead giveaway or was she normal? If she was normal, would someone immediately recognize her anyway?
Jane reached back and touched her braid. She wished she had some way to cut it off and thought about undoing it. She felt a stab of pain in her shoulder from lifting it that way and let go.
She didn't think she could manage to walk all the way and didn't want to sleep out here in this state.
She took the chance and stuck her thumb out.
The car slowed down and came to a stop beside her.
Jane's eyes went wide. She instantly recognized the car.
It was the small green one that had lingered on the dam and drove over her hands to safety.
It looked a lot bigger but smaller than it should.
Jane could see the driver a lot better too—a woman with short brown hair that looked to be around her age.
"It's you..."
The brown-haired woman said through the open passenger window, gawking up at Jane's towering face like she'd seen a ghost.
"Sorry, nevermind." Jane muttered and looked away but it was too late.
Jane staggered away from the car down the road.
The little green car followed her.
"No, please! Please. You saved me. I don't—let me help?"
The woman pleaded through the window at Jane, who didn't look over.
"Please! If I put the front seat back down all the way, you can probably fit. I guess. I can go find a pay phone to call somebody for you too?"
Jane couldn't think of who she would even call. Would calling someone make it worse? Had she done something wrong? Would someone try to arrest her? Had they called in the National Guard? Was the whole world currently searching for her?
Do they know already know who I am? Who even is they? Jane thought to herself quietly as she stopped walking.
The car stopped beside her.
She looked around and back at the car, thinking and running her tongue over her split lip again.
Jane didn't know what she was thinking. She should have tried to hide when she saw the headlights. She didn't feel like it was safe to be around anyone right now. Maybe ever again.
She looked at the woman in the car again. She didn't look right. Her sense of perception was off. It was like her mind was splicing together what she'd seen earlier with now. The differing sizes of the small green car and woman inside were blended in her head.
Jane wasn't sure what was happening and she didn't like it.
Another pair of headlights, coming from the opposite direction, appeared in the distance. It wouldn't be able to see them yet, but it would soon.
"Come on. Please? What did you tell me on the dam?"
Jane thought she should move but something was very off. She worried she might pass out again.
"Trust me..." The woman said as she reached over and opened the passenger-side door.
Jane squinted down at the woman. She hesitated but, after a moment, crouched down and squeezed into the little green car.
She had to bend and contort herself in a way that made her various throbbing pains feel sharper, but she fit.
The woman in the driver's seat tried to close the passenger door around Jane's huge leg but couldn't manage. She got out, walked around the car, and shut the door from the outside, careful not to close it on any part of Jane, and then back to the driver's seat.
The other car passed without slowing down, paying the green car stopped on the side of the road no mind at all. The woman started driving again, trying to keep her eyes on the road instead of the impossibly large pair of legs beside her and the big red sneakers covering her dashboard.
"Where are you—or, I mean... Where were you headed?"
Jane was in a lot of pain that was making her feel even more scrambled. She stayed quiet, trying to think of what to say. She thought of the first thing the man with the megaphone had asked.
Jane had to be more careful than ever.
"Uh...I was going..." Jane stopped for a moment, "where Route 7 and 52 cross." Jane lied.
Dropping her off at that spot could mean at least six different towns that Jane would be heading towards from there. She'd have to walk the rest of the way home from there. If the woman decided to say anything to anyone, hopefully the lie would buy Jane more time.
More time for what? To hide? To flee? To do both at the same time?
Jane didn't know what she was going to do about anything anymore. She wished Betsy were here. Her head hurt and as she looked at the car's interior ceiling the sky from her bird's eye view of the dam flashed over it. She closed her eyes hoping it would stop.
"Thank you... for stopping." Jane said through her pain and throbbing headache.
Everything in the car seemed to be spinning so Jane shut her eyes hoping it'd make it better.
"No problem. But to be honest, I'm freaking out a little bit. I didn't think it could possibly be you, but then I got closer, and it was obvious how huge you were, so I knew it must be you. It's really been a day."
"Yeah."
"How did you? How are you? I don't understand—"
"It happens."
"You just randomly grow into a giant?"
"Sometimes. My—I saw what was happening and thought I could help..." Jane had almost said "brother" but stopped herself.
She needed to be quiet.
"Well, I'm glad you did. That was incredible. You saved us."
Jane didn't say anything from the backseat. It was easy to stay silent when everything that hurt felt even worse from being so cramped.
"I hate driving over bridges. But I wanted to drive to the city by myself for the first time. I guess I picked the worst possible day for it before you came along. I stopped to get gas and the guy at the station told me that if I didn't go over the dam way, then the other way was going to take most of the day."
Jane thought of how long it had taken her, Betsy, and David to get home from the city that same way last disastrous summer.
"There was this bang and a crack, and water just started flowing over the road. A few cars got swept over the side ahead of me, and I just froze. If I had gotten to the bridge one minute later...I didn't know what to do."
Jane had checked for any cars at the bottom of the dam when she first got there and didn't see anything. She didn't think the water was that high or strong when she'd arrived, but she knew that was only the second time that she'd gotten that big so she probably didn't appreciate how deep it truly was.
Jane wondered briefly how many people died. Jane didn't know if there was anything she could have done if she'd been there anyway. Being that big was so much harder.
She had to do everything completely differently depending on her size. If she didn't, and took it for granted, she could carelessly do something that would have been fine at twenty feet tall but devastating three or four times bigger.
Each time she had reached a new record over the years, she had to relearn everything to be safe at that new size.
And how big did she get today by the end of it...Big enough she was afraid to move at all. Too big.
They drove together in silence for another few minutes, but Jane could feel the woman wanted to ask more questions. Jane kept her eyes closed and wasn't going to offer anything first. Her head hurt, and it was making it hard to concentrate on not letting some personal detail slip out.
Would this woman tell everyone that she'd found Jane after the dam and given her a lift? Jane hoped that if she did that everyone would think she sounded crazy.
"My name is Jacqueline, by the way. But everyone just calls me Jacky. My mom was a big fan of the Kennedys, I guess. You don't have to tell me your name. If you want to stay secret or anonymous or whatever, I guess. But I wanted you to know who I am. Who you saved...giving you a ride is the least I can do in return... Only it's really weird that you're filling my car... after you picked it up like a bug a few hours ago..."
Jacky was just a kid. She probably hadn't even had her license to drive for very long. As if she needed another straw on her back, Jane felt old beyond her years.
Jacky could see, unlike her, that Jane hadn't gone physically unscathed from her heroism. She thought Jane looked like she'd climbed out of a car that had wrecked, then caught on fire, and then got dropped to the bottom of a river.
Jacky felt guilty.
"I think there's a diner up ahead. I can pull over and park in the back to get something if you are hungry or anything. I'm buying..."
Jane shook her head and realized Jacky couldn't see that in the dark backseat. She'd have to talk again.
"No. Thanks. That's nice...but I don't—I'm not hungry."
They drove on in silence for a few more minutes, and a few cars drove past them going the other direction.
"A ride is plenty." Jane said, thinking of how overly effusive and generous Mrs. Rosen had been when bigger Jane first started helping her out.
"It's the least I could do. I'm sure everyone else you saved would feel the same. You're a hero. They should give you the key to the city or something, I guess. I promise I won't say anything, though. I guess with that bandana and hat you were either trying to not be recognized or rob a bank."
Jacky laughed slightly at her joke, and Jane shifted, clearing her throat while she exhaled.
Now she understood why all of the characters in Bobby's comics had masks and costumes.
"Do you do this kind of thing a lot?"
"No."
"Well, now that you're famous, I bet you'll get all kinds of requests and fan letters."
"What?"
"Oh, well you know since you were on the news and all. Everywhere. The whole thing. I bet it was broadcast across the country. You probably have fans now."
Jane swallowed and suddenly had tunnel vision on top of everything else. She thought of everyone who she'd met or spoken to having seen her like that on the news. There'd be no way they wouldn't recognize her. Her whole high school probably knew by now. The reason for all of her absences and odd behavior over the years would be obvious.
The whole town and everyone she'd ever even met must have figured it out.
"Oh god..."
Jane felt like she was going to be sick.
"Are you okay?"
"No."
"Do you want me to pull over?"
"No. Keep driving. I need to get home."
"Okay. I think we'll be there pretty soon. I was going to pass that intersection on my way anyway. Are you sure you're not just hungry or something?"
"No. No, I... Oh god, everyone is going to know..."
Jane couldn't contain her rising panic. Before she left for the dam, in the barn, she thought it was a risk, but she didn't think things all the way through. She rarely did. Of course there'd be lots of witnesses, but Jane should have known that the news would be there too.
Should she have still done it? Would she have done it if she'd known Jane looked at Jacky, thinking.
Jane wanted Betsy. She wanted Betsy so badly. Betsy in the woods alone together with no one knowing who she was or anything about her.
Jane had ruined it. She'd ruined everything.
"Do you have a boyfriend? I have a boyfriend. His name is Jake. He's really sweet. I think he's saving up for an engagement ring, but I don't know. I hope he proposes. Then we can find a house and have a bunch of kids and—"
Jacky stopped rambling at hearing Jane sobbing in the dark corner of the back seat. Jane's feet slid back and forth on the dashboard as her crying got harder.
"Oh! Oh! Are you alright? What's wrong?"
"I-I...I r-ruineddd..."
Jane didn't say anything else and tried to pull it together, but she couldn't. She was overwhelmed by thinking she'd ruined what small life she had and the life of everyone she loved too.
She was just trying to do the right thing, but she'd ruined everything.
The car pulled over to the side of the road, and Jacky turned off the engine and lights. She spun around to look back at Jane, who was hiding her face between the door and the seat cushion.
"Hey! Hey! Listen! Listen! I don't know what your name is, but you didn't ruin a anything. You saved my life! You saved all of those people's lives trapped up there with me! You kept the dam from collapsing and killing who knows how many other people!"
Jane kept crying, but it was more subdued than before as she listened.
"I know everyone else you saved feels the same. I can't believe anyone would ever think you ruined anything by doing what you did today. You're a hero! Miss...bank robber. No, I guess that sounds bad..."
Jane took several deep breaths in and nodded, trying to calm down. She hoped that Jacky was right.
Jane needed to be home.
From a windowless room in Washington D.C., the footage of Jane replayed over and over on several large screens.
"We have to find out whoever the fuck that was, wherever the fuck it came from, and we needed to do it YESTERDAY!"
A tall man with a tightly cropped military haircut yelled at the top of his lungs at the dozens of other men in uniform hurriedly working around him.
"I have to go to the White House, and I want some goddamn answers to those questions by the time I get back!"
The tall man, U.S. Army General McMasters, slammed his fist on the table closest to where he was standing. He marched out, several aides following closely behind him.
Jane is willing to risk being found out to save people from a dire situation. She'll have to get bigger than she ever has to do it. Super big.
If you don't want to sleep well at night, there are over 17,000 dams in the United States that are at risk of failure that would cause a loss of life. But we keep spending money on dumb things.
Also local/non-national news bloopers are one of my absolute favorite things.
Content Warning: Adult themes and language, mild terror.
Word Count: 3,800
***
Like many news stations of this new modern era, Channel 5 had invested in a helicopter for traffic reporting and major news events. It was paying off in spades today as it hovered 500 feet above the threatened dam.
The dam was outside of the small town Jane grew up in and had been around for a long time. It was only a matter of time before neglect caused catastrophe.
"Nancy! It's a dire situation out here. We've been told by authorities that there's been a malfunction in the floodgates yesterday that's allowed the water level of the reservoir to get dangerously high. So high that there's now a mandatory evacuation order in place for the entire county downstream of this dam!"
The mustached helicopter news reporter named Ralph Phillips said into the microphone of his headset as he narrated the scene for their television audience.
"As you can see on our camera feed right now it appears that some sort of debris came downriver with all of that heavy rainfall we've had this past week and slammed into the dam. It must have been quite something or maybe that concrete has just gotten brittle with age. You can see on the camera now there's a enormous chunk missing out of the crest. Both the eastbound and westbound lanes of the road are just gone. Just look at that raging torrent from too much water in the reservoir trying to escape."
His tone was vacillated somewhere between factual and excited.
"In the commotion, traffic slammed into one another and there's massive pileup blocking the west side of the dam completely. You can see on our Chopper 5 news cam there are dozens of people still trapped in their vehicles right smack in the middle. Fire and rescue are cut off on both sides right now. Unless something drastic happens this is an increasingly dangerous situation for those people."
The helicopter's pilot kept it steady as the cameraman held his camera out the right side down where the action was at the dam as the chopper's newsman, Ralph, sat beside him narrating for the television viewers.
"We're going to stay here and broadcast this important news story. You can see authorities conferring with one another. I'd imagine they're trying to deal with the dual emergencies of that rising water and those stranded drivers. We've seen the water level continue to rise since we've arrived on the scene. If they can't figure out something, then this structure may not hold out for long. And those people are—"
He happened to turn to the other side when he heard the pilot yelling something indiscernible into their headsets.
"HOLY SHIT!!! JIMMY, THE CAMERA! OVER THERE!"
"Ralph, we're live on air right now, and for the folks at home, we—OH MY GOD..." Nancy Watkins, the female member of the two-person anchor team back in the broadcast studio in the city, yelled when she saw what was in the camera's new view.
The cameraman had swung to switch sides of the helicopter. Square in the center of his framing was Jane walking straight towards the dam.
She was beside the road leading up to the dam. She was going slower than she wanted to, gingerly taking each step and looking down before she lowered her shoe to make sure nothing, or no one, would fall underfoot.
"Uh, Ralph, what am I seeing right now? Is this from the camera angle or something?" Chuck Nelson, the male half of the studio anchor team, was slower on the uptake than his colleagues.
"No Chuck! It's-It's a—It's a giant woman! She's-She's hundreds of feet tall. I can see now as she's getting closer she's taller than the dam! She's heading straight towards it! This is unbelievable!"
Jane heard the helicopter's sound and looked up over her head. She was glad she didn't have to worry about dodging that too. But she knew that this would definitively destroy her parents' legacy of keeping her secret.
She'd never been around so many people before when she was big.
Especially this big...
As she got closer to the dam, she noticed she hadn't stopped growing. It was as if her compulsion was squaring up to it like it knew somehow what she was up against.
It was increasingly harder than she expected to watch where she stepped. She had to freeze and adjust several times because someone had pulled their vehicle off the road where she was trying to walk or she thought she saw something moving and didn't want to risk it.
She felt like she was trying to avoid stepping on the little plastic army men that blended so well into the living room carpet back when Bobby was younger and had the habit of dumping all of his toys out on the floor.
Except those plastic army men were way bigger compared to the tiny people at her feet now. If Jane had known she'd end up this big she never would have come.
Jane looked at the dam in front of her. The top of it was just below her sternum but it was far wider than she could reach across if she spread out both arms. It was the thinnest at the top and sloped down like a playground slide thicker towards the bottom where her she stood in nearly ankle deep water.
Jane remembered going over this dam once for a farm show years ago when her dad was still alive. She remembered looking out the passenger window of his truck at the long drop to the bottom.
She shook her head slightly as she remembered how high she thought that was and how big the dam had seemed. But that was many years before her compulsion started.
Something must have gone terribly wrong because Jane could see water pouring through a section at the top where it looked like a chunk was missing. It probably wouldn't have been that much of an issue. Except they had decided to put the two-lane road Jane remembered over the top of the dam, making it also function as a bridge across the river.
A stream of water was flowing like a firehose where the road was supposed to be. Jane hoped no one had been washed over the side, and she couldn't see any obvious wreckage at the bottom near her feet.
There was a massive pileup of cars on the one side of the bridge, blocking it off completely for regular sized people. It looked like those who could got out of their cars and ran to safety. Everyone was fending for themselves.
They must have panicked when the water took out the road.
She could see that there were several cars with people inside caught between the pileup on the one side and the rushing water flowing through the gap in the road on the other.
Fire trucks and police cars were on both sides of the dam, at the shoreline, trying to figure out what to do against the ticking clock.
Jane wasn't sure what to do either but she saw that a few of the cars in the pileup were on fire. She knew enough to know that wasn't good.
Jane stepped up to the dam. She cupped her gloved hands and stretched over the road at the top, dipping them down to fill up with water. She raised them up, carrying water over the flaming wrecks.
Jane opened her hands letting the water drench them, and most everything else, completely. She repeated it a couple of times until she only saw smoke.
Once that was done, Jane stepped over to the closest little patch of lights flashing from the tops of the emergency vehicles and bent over. She put her hands on her hips out of habit and looked for anyone in the crowd that seemed as if they might be in charge amongst all of the uniforms.
She felt like she was trying to pick a specific piece of Halloween candy out of a bucket at the end of a night's haul. She was about to call out but reminded herself of how loud she'd been with the tornado. She was a lot bigger than that now and needed to be more selective.
"Need help?" Jane's normal speaking voice would make a foghorn seem quiet at this size so she whispered as best she could and kept her words to a minimum.
Most of the emergency responders stood or gawked up at her from where they were in stunned silence. Like everyone else, their reactions varied, but complete and total surprise or outright denial was widespread.
Finally, one of the small figures amongst the crowd moved. They reached into a vehicle and then emerged again. The person raised a megaphone to his mouth and spoke into it up at Jane.
"WHO ARE YOU?!"
Jane's brow furrowed at the question wondering if he expected her give him her name and home address.
Jane tried to look annoyed rather than say anything.
She saw the figure lower the bullhorn and talk with several other people around them. At their size, and with all of the noise from everything going on, she couldn't make out what they were saying without that megaphone.
"WE'RE TRYING GET THE FLOODGATES OPEN TO EASE THE PRESSURE ON THE DAM! SOMETHING IS BROKEN AND IT'S TAKING TOO MUCH TIME!"
In a gravity dam like the one in front of Jane, the gate mechanism was how they controlled the water level in the reservoir side of the structure. By closing them, the water level would rise, and by opening them, it would allow water to escape and lower.
In normal operations this is managed carefully to deal with fluctuations caused by natural forces to ensure that pressure on the dam didn't exceed expected limits.
With the past week of heavy rain, the water level on the reservoir had become unnaturally high, which normally wouldn't be a problem if those floodgates were functioning properly. But with them blocked, all of that water kept flowing and building behind the dam with nowhere to go.
The big missing chunk at the crest, preventing the cars from getting to safety, wasn't really an issue at the moment. Except for the poor people trapped by it and the pileup on the other side.
If anything, with the gates jammed, the missing section of road actually helped. It at least let some water escape and lower the overall level. Thereby reducing the amount of corresponding pressure from the enormous weight of so many millions upon millions of gallons.
If they couldn't lower the water level, and pressure, in a controlled way then the dam was at risk. If it failed, the unleashed force of all of those gallons at once would destroy everything downstream for miles from the force and flood.
A few years earlier in West Virginia, a dam at the Buffalo Creek failed. When it did, over 130 million gallons of black wastewater from mining activities went through Buffalo Creek hollow. 125 people died, over a thousands were injured, and even more thousands were made homeless in a couple of minutes.
This would be worse.
But Jane didn't really know any of this. She could only guess what was happening by what she was seeing. She knew bad things would happen without her.
She waited and listened attentively for something doable.
"CAN YOU GET THOSE PEOPLE TO SAFETY?"
He pointed over towards cars that were stuck in the middle of the road on top of the dam.
Jane nodded. She'd have to remember how much easier it was to talk to someone through a megaphone. Although she didn't ever plan on being this out in the open ever again.
Or this big.
Jane far preferred quiet, smaller, talks with Betsy in the woods to this, but she thought Betsy might like a megaphone to level the playing field occasionally.
Despite all their training and experience, the newscasters fell silent for an eternity in broadcast television. But their producer still had the wherewithal to know that their regional Channel 5 was about to be the most famous station on the planet.
He piped their feed into the network. Channel 5's network linked into all of the other major broadcast news outlets in moments. Jane, and to a much lesser extent the dam, quickly became national breaking news being broadcast live from coast to coast.
Then it went global.
Jane stood back upright and turned towards the dam. Out of habit, she looked down to check for anything or anyone. Then Jane eased into the deeper water at the center of the dam on the downstream side where she'd been standing. She hated the feeling of wet shoes.
She took one more careful step to get within easy reach of the trapped cars.
Jane peered down and turned her head from side to side at the row of people in their trapped vehicles. She lifted one gloved hand and gave them as friendly of a little wave as she could. Jane couldn't hear it, but several people screamed in their cars.
Jane pointed at the cars, in a big exaggerated fashion, then pantomimed lifting them up and setting them down on the other side where they'd be safe over and beyond the rushing water.
She did it again hoping it was painfully clear what was about to happen so they could be prepared.
One by one, Jane picked up the cars. Each time, she carefully shuffled through the water, afraid she might slip, and deposited whatever vehicle in her grip safely on the side out of harm's way.
Car, truck, or van. One by one Jane picked them up like different colored easter eggs.
She'd learned from hard earned experience, the first few times she ever picked up cars when she was much smaller than this, how to hold it so she didn't dent or crush the metal. It was much flimsier than she expected. And they were so much heavier on the inside when she lifted them that it seemed like they were determined to get ruined.
It was like holding a glass Christmas bulb with a spiky lead weight rolling around inside.
She had to be extra careful now. She could tell she wasn't as coordinated as she normally would be.
Everything seemed so small and distant. But her hands and fingers looked totally normal. It was everything else that was off but she knew that was wrong. It was her.
She could hear her heart pounding between her ears and she focused on steadying her breathing as best she could.
Each time she picked up another car, Jane worried that it was going to be one that she recognized with someone inside who knew her. Her baseball hat and bandana weren't going to do much as a disguise if they did.
Jane picked up a station wagon with a whole family of six inside, including their dog that she could see circling in the way back. Jane lifted it up to her face and stared at the tiny shocked figures inside. The kids looked thrilled, but their parents did not. Jane winked to wild shouts from the kids then set the wagon down safely on the side with the others.
In the Carter's living room, Mrs. Carter dropped the television remote where she stood. She saw Jane's unmistakable towering figure in front of the dam on her living room television. The helicopter's view stayed glued to her as it circled slowly from above.
"Oh god! Janey..."
Their phone rang, and Mrs. Carter shakily picked it up to her husband on the other end of the line, her eyes glued to the television.
"I know! I'm watching! John, what do we do?! Everyone is going to see her! Oh god, Janey..."
Bobby thought that the dam situation probably made it onto the television news. As the Parson farm didn't have a television, he managed to bike faster than he ever had in his life to Mrs. Rosen's house.
Bobby got there by the time that Jane had already made it to the dam. He walked with Mrs. Rosen to her ancient television set, frantically explaining what was happening.
They turned it on and saw Jane. Mrs. Rosen's hand came to her mouth as she gasped in worry.
Bobby smiled from ear to ear at being right. His sister was like a superhero or something.
Jane thought she'd gotten all of the cars with people off the bridge. Just as she did, the water flow increased noticeably through the missing chunk in the top. She turned and scanned the bridge one last time to be sure.
Shortly after he returned to the city, David had managed to find a job at a car dealership. He'd given up on working in bars after the raid and needed something that paid better now that he was totally cut off. The owner of the dealership knew of David's father and thought it was a minor coup to have David Thmopson the Fourth working for him instead of his own family.
But David, like everyone else at the dealership, was down the street. They were watching the news in a packed crowd in front of the window of an electronics store that had televisions on display. Standing there, David had to resist the urge to shout, 'I know her,' as it rose up inside of him.
He suddenly remembered Jane's warning and how intimidating she seemed on the roof. She was so, so much bigger on the tv that he gulped even trying to comprehend it.
At the dam, Jane watched and waited for anything. Then Jane thought she saw something moving in one small green car. She lowered her face down to look inside.
She saw a woman curled up in a fetal position across the front seats. Jane guessed she must be pretty terrified.
"Hey..." Jane whispered as softly as she could through the bandana over her face. Her voice still shook the car.
The woman stayed in place and peered over at Jane. Jane was tempted to just pick the car up and move it but thought better of it. She remembered what Betsy had told her about how it felt when Jane had picked her up during the tornado.
She saw the woman lean up a little. Jane wondered if she was maybe scared of heights, bridges, Jane, or everything right now. She tried to be as calming as she could manage given the circumstances.
"I won't pick you up."
The woman looked at Jane confused but Jane couldn't make out the expression on her little faraway face.
"Trust me."
Instead, Jane stepped over to where the water was gushing through the broken lip of the dam's crest. She put one hand down into the crack and managed to slow the gushing water over her hand, but the road was still impassable. She wedged her other hand over it and made them as flat as possible to replace the section of missing road surface.
She maneuvered her hands watching until the water stopped. They filled in the gap where the concrete had been enough so the car to drive over them instead.
She kept her arms locked tight and felt the rubber soles of her shoes slipping a bit on the slick concrete.
"Drive!" Jane said in a hurried whisper but the whole structure shook from her order.
Jane hoped the woman behind the wheel could be brave.
The green car screeched forward and drove bumpily over the uneven leather covered surface of Jane's wedged hands. It zoomed off the bridge, nearly hitting a police car on the other side before finally stopping a good ways off the dam.
Jane grunted in satisfaction and pulled her hands out and away. Water started pouring through it again.
Jane looked down at the dam road one more time but she didn't see anything else. She raised one hand and rubbed her forehead with the back of her wrist just under the baseball cap in relief.
This was turning out to be easier than she thought it'd be so far.
She shuffled back to the side where the megaphone guy was and leaned down again.
Several of the small figures were very animated as they gestured and shouted at one another. She didn't know whether it was because of her or the dam. Jane took a breath and adjusted the bandana tied across her face waiting.
"Rob a bank..." she thought of what Bobby had said in her head.
She guessed that she wasn't doing herself any favors in seeming trustworthy with her shoddy disguise. She thought about how someone with the same compulsion as her might have done exactly that at some point.
It would have been a much easier way to earn money by robbing a bank than what she'd chosen to use it for over the years. She could have done it at night. Any night she could have just gone to a bank, smashed open the safe and taken all the money she could ever need.
So why hadn't she done it? Who could have stopped her?
Jane thought back to a summer in high school with Betsy at the pond in the woods by her farm. They had decided to go swimming to get a break from the heat. Betsy was using Jane's torso as a makeshift dock to lay on while Jane floated in the middle of the pond.
Even though school was over, Betsy was reading one of her textbooks, Encounter: An Introduction to Philosophy, in the bright sun. Jane's skin felt cooler against her back than she expected in such heat. She wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.
"Janey?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you think it means to be good?"
"What?"
"You know good, like what it means to be a good person."
"Oh. You know not hurting anybody and being kind. Helping them when you can and not breaking any laws I guess."
"What do you think of Kant?"
"I don't think of Kant at all? Am I supposed to?"
"I guess not, that was a good answer by the way."
"I didn't know I was being quizzed."
"Stop. I was just talking."
"It's hard to talk and float at the same time Bets. Unless you want to get your book wet..."
Jane let herself dip down in the pond so that water rushed up over her stomach drenching Betsy. Betsy shrieked from the unexpected cold and bolted upright. She turned to face Jane menacingly.
"No, no, no! I'm sorry! I didn't want to talk about boo—" Jane laughed as Betsy leapt towards her face.
Jane snapped out of it at the sound of screeching feedback from the megaphone as the man holding it got ready to speak.
Mr. Cumberland was at the town diner, desperately clutching at the top of his bottle of heart pills. His shaky hands finally got it open, and he slipped one under his tongue. He stared wide-eyed at the giant figure on TV. He knew no one else likely would but to him it was unmistakeable. Right on the giant's head was a baseball cap from his farm, terribly faded, but the green and white was clear as day to him. And tumbling down from under it was a bright red braid of hair. Now he knew how Jane had been delivering trees all these years.
Across Jane's hometown, and wherever else people from there had moved onto now, people immediately recognized the tell-tale hair and figure of little Jane Parsons. For some of them, like old man Cumberland, a lot of somewhat unexplained things over the past several years suddenly made sense at the sight of Jane's towering figure revealed on national television.
The man with the megaphone raised it back to his face again to shout up at Jane.
"THANK YOU! WE THINK—"
Before he could go on, a loud crack rang out interrupting him. Jane felt the water rise suddenly up her leg. She looked at the dam. There was a huge seam through another section of the road. It looked like it ran deep.
A whole section of the dam seemed to be leaning forward.
"STOP IT!"
Jane could hear the panic from the megaphone and bolted forward. She put her hands against the dam and pushed as hard as she could. She might as well have been trying to move Milkshake at her usual size when the stubborn cow didn't want to go somewhere.
Jane knew she had to get bigger.
So she did.
Jane felt the water level lower against her shoes as she expanded outward and upward. It was going faster than she'd ever remembered. She closed her eyes because that always made her less dizzy when it happened quickly. Her shadow spread in the afternoon sun as she rose.
"She's getting bigger..." Ralph in the helicopter finally said as Jane's head got closer and closer to them in the helicopter above.
The pilot pulled up on the stick to make the helicopter climb higher in the air to be safe.
Jane kept pushing against the dam, straining and waiting for it to give and go back the way it should be. Her feet kept slipping as she pushed with all of her might while she grew. She fell down hard onto one knee shaking everyone nearby.
Jane got up again, legs bent and arms extended in front of her. She had to bend over more and more to keep her arms level with the dam. It got lower and lower as her fingers stretched longer and thicker.
Her feet slipped again, but she kept pushing against the dam with her shoulder instead.
Jane screamed as she struggled.
Betsy was reading a textbook and taking notes in a small diner around the corner from her dorm. She needed a change of scenery sometimes when she read and had grown fond of sitting there in the early evenings. It reminded her of the one she went to with Jane in the city on her birthday trip.
Betsy's mind wandered, thinking about her.
Betsy missed her really badly today for some reason. Maybe it was seeing so many affectionate couples in public. She couldn't wait to call her tonight. She wished she could see her right now.
"Look at that!" Another diner on a stool a few seats down from her exclaimed.
Gasps and other sounds filled the diner as everyone's attention was drawn to the single TV hanging from the ceiling at one corner of the diner's long counter.
It took a moment for Betsy to pay attention to her surroundings.
She looked everyone else, then turned to look up at the TV.
Betsy's heart stopped, and she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her when she saw what was on it.
Did you know Douglas-fir trees were only a west coast thing in the US until the 1970s? Now you do.
Look, it was snowing the other day where I am and I had a vision. This is the result. Self indulgently this may be my fav thing I've ever written and I keep re-reading it.
Poem is Emily Dickinson's "Wild nights - Wild nights!"
Content Warning: Adult themes and language, Suggestive.
Word Count: 6,000
***
Old Man Cumberland had been planting trees on his farm for years. It was something he did for crop rotation. The trees helped improve the soil, and he'd harvest them for firewood when it was time.
One morning, he read in the paper about farmers who had switched entirely to trees as a cash crop. He wasn't getting any younger, and the farm was getting more and more laborious every year.
Cumberland's Christmas Tree Farm was born. Most of the trees were cut and shipped to the city. It was a lot easier than wheat. He tried to sell the rest of the trees locally but never did very well. Cumberland's farm was far out, truly in the middle of nowhere, even by Jane's standards.
Because of that, cash and carry wasn't popular. He knew people would buy more if they could get the trees delivered, but he thought it was too much work.
At the speed his tractor went, it would take until the new year, and he wasn't about to pay for a proper truck with delivery men. He settled for the few local sales to intrepid souls willing to make the journey. The unsold trees were turned into cords of firewood, making far less money per tree than if they'd been bought for decoration.
Fourteen-year-old Jane realized she could deliver a lot of trees for Cumberland, all over town, quickly and easily.
She just had to be big enough and make sure no one saw her doing it.
Jane had already spent time in the summer, along with a few of the other money-hungry farm kids, helping tend to acres of Cumberland's trees. It didn't pay much, but Jane would take what she could from wherever she could.
It was how she learned about his delivery dilemma. Jane realized that being fifty feet tall didn't help tending to them in the field, but it'd make quick work of hauling them. Lately, Jane had been easily able to get that big.
Right before Thanksgiving, Jane went to make her proposal to old man Cumberland. He wasn't as open to the idea as Jane had hoped. Being sparse about details for how she'd manage to actually deliver them wasn't helping Jane convince him.
He was in a rocking chair on his porch. Betsy had come along too. She thought he looked like something out of a bad dime store novel, amazed at the cliché. All he needed was some whittling.
She had to get out of this town. If it wasn't for Jane, she would leave and never come back.
"Now Jane... you're a good strong girl. Your father was a good man, bless his soul. And you've been a hard worker in the summer. But even with your help, it'd take a damn long time to deliver trees all over town. The juice isn't worth the squeeze..."
Jane and Betsy stood at the bottom of the porch steps as they listened to his dismissive tone.
"Oh no! Mr. Cumberland! I wasn't going to help you do it."
The old farmer looked at her confused.
"I told you already that I was going to deliver them... by myself."
He wasn't a rude man, but he couldn't keep from laughing.
Jane crossed her arms, tempted to let her compulsion go wild to see the look on his face when she proved him wrong. Fortunately, Betsy grabbed her arm, knowing what her girlfriend of two years was thinking.
"Mr. Cumberland. You know my father would love to buy your trees. For our house. His office. He even wants to donate some to families in need. It'd be worth hundreds of dollars. But you know my dad. There's no way he's going to lug trees around. That old truck of his is just for show to fit in better around here."
Betsy pointed over her shoulder, without looking, at her dad. He waited for them in his blue truck, reading a newspaper. When Jane and Betsy told him their plan, he agreed to drive them out to Cumberland's farm. Betsy insisted that he wait in the car and not help. Always amused at his eldest's antics, he agreed, curious to see how it would go.
Because of how much bigger she'd been getting lately, Jane was more timid about riding inside cars. On the way to the tree farm, Jane rode in the open back of the truck. She worried about what would happen to Betsy and her father if she unexpectedly got big.
The first time Jane grew big enough to pick up a car, she decided to practice. There was an old heap, whose engine would never be fixed, abandoned behind her barn. She didn't know when she might ever actually pick up a car and for what reason. But she wanted to be prepared without denting or crushing it.
But if her compulsion acted up when she was inside of one, the only thing she could hope for was to jump out in time.
Another wave of laughter escaped from the old man as he looked at Betsy's father sitting in the truck a ways off.
"That is true! I bet turning those newspaper pages is the most manual labor his hands get—"
He couldn't finish his sentence from laughing at Mr. Carter's expense. He didn't have much respect for people who didn't work the land in some way.
Jane thought she'd have to hold Betsy back, but her girlfriend didn't look as flustered as she expected. Jane didn't think she'd ever get used to Betsy being more than her best friend. It felt completely natural, and she still got a little giddy whenever she thought about her as a girlfriend.
"Mr. Cumberland... I'm surprised at you! I thought you were a businessman, not just some dumb hick."
The old man shut up quick.
"What's that?"
Jane stayed silent, unsure how insulting him was going to help, but she trusted her whip-smart best friend.
"Listen... If you want to miss out on so much money, that's your business. It's a free country, but it's not a very good business if you ask me. Come on, Janey, he's just an old fool."
His eyes narrowed. Jane looked at Betsy, worried. Betsy made a dramatic turn where she stood, like she was going to leave.
"What in the hell does a stuck-up town girl like you know about farming? You've probably done even less work than your fancy father over there."
Betsy spun on her heels like a fisherman who knew the big one had taken the hook.
"You only harvest what? Every one out of three trees? And the city sellers never buy ALL of your supply, leaving you with maybe 20 to 30% of your viable yield every year that you're stuck with trying to sell yourself?"
Betsy could see the old man's wheels were turning as she talked.
"Let's say you sell them on average for $20 dollars a tree, accounting for varying heights..."
Betsy's eyes wandered over to Jane while pausing. Jane gave her a look.
"How in the hell..." The old man was very confused by how a girl like Betsy could figure all of this out.
"At most, you probably only sell half of the trees you have left because you won't deliver them into town. And people like my fancy father over there, who would pay you good money for them, don't want to drive all the way out here and haul a tree all the way back. What'd you say? The juice isn't worth the squeeze?"
Old man Cumberland looked at Betsy like she was casting a spell from a book made of human skin. Jane wasn't quite sure where she was getting all of these numbers. He hadn't corrected her math so far, though. People rarely ever corrected Betsy's math.
"That's why you sell to the city folk in the first place. People are lazy and have no work ethic anymore. They just want to go down the street for a tree, not halfway across the county."
"You're not wrong there—"
"Listen. Every year, you're losing thousands of dollars. Why not let Janey keep the five bucks to deliver them? It'd be less than the gas it would take for someone to drive out here and get one. Even a complete idiot could see the sense in delivery instead."
Jane could tell by the look in Betsy's eyes that she meant him when she said 'complete idiot' and hoped he didn't pick up on it as well.
"Five dollars! Five dollars? You're willing to do all that work for five dollars a tree? That won't even cover your expenses by the time you're finished..."
He said skeptically, looking at Jane dwarfed by Betsy standing tall beside her.
"Don't you worry about that, sir. I promise I'll deliver every single tree no matter what it takes."
Jane and Betsy could tell he was close to saying yes.
"Five dollars for delivery...and you keep four."
"No. She keeps all five for delivery, and you can keep all the money from the bows."
"The bows?"
"From Santa at the North Pole. If other kids are anything like my little sisters, then they'd just die to have the tree come all the way from Santa at the North Pole with a bow on it. Parents won't be able to say no to their children at Christmas for something like that if they can help it."
Other than with Jane, Betsy spent most of her time with her little sisters or other children she knew. She even started a story time after school at the library for the kids. Reading to the kids was the most animated Jane ever saw her around others.
The old man couldn't help but grin. Jane was impressed. Betsy hadn't mentioned the bows before now.
"I already talked to Mrs. Thomas at the store in town, and she'll sell them to you wholesale because I convinced her it will make the kids happy. AND you keep all of the money for the tree. But Jane gets to keep all of the delivery money."
"Deal!"
"Deal," Betsy answered for Jane.
"Now how on earth..."
"We already made flyers to put around town with the details. They'll call you with who, where, how many, what sizes, and if they get bows. Mrs. Thomas is going to have the bows delivered out here for you, for free, by the way. When the cutters are done, just slap a bow on them and load them into that wagon. She'll take it from there."
Betsy pointed over to his old hay wagon parked off to the side of Cumberland's house. The last time it had seen better days was a few decades ago, but it was still in service.
"Come morning your customers will wake up to find a tree all the way from Santa himself in the North Pole on their doorsteps. You won't be able to grow enough trees once word spreads."
The old man chuckled and was amazed that he could still be surprised by something after all these years.
"Shake on it." Betsy gestured to Jane.
He started to get out of his chair, but Jane hurried up the steps first and took his hand, shaking to seal the deal.
"You have a hell of a grip, girl."
"Uh, thanks—I promise I'll do a really good job, Mr. Cumberland!"
He smiled at her and waved as they hurried away. As Jane and Betsy walked back to her dad waiting in the truck, Jane got up close to Betsy before he could hear them.
"Bets, how did you know all that about—"
"I read an article about Christmas trees and inflation in the paper the other day," Betsy grinned before she continued, "but the bows were Susie's idea."
Jane smiled, thinking of how Betsy's whole family looked after her when they didn't have to.
"Thank you, Bets. This really means a lot to me. I don't know how—"
"I'd do anything for you, Janey. Anything... But Susie did have something she wanted..."
Jane looked up at Betsy curiously. She couldn't help but think of how pretty and smart her girlfriend was…Girlfriend...
"She asked that you make sure to save the BIGGEST tree for our house. And I promised her you would. Deal?"
"Deal."
"How'd you two girls make out?" Betsy's father asked when Betsy opened the passenger-side door and Jane hopped into the back.
They were both grinning from ear to ear.
Every Christmas since, Jane would deliver Cumberland's trees in the dead of night. She secured big chains onto his wagon, full of trees, so she could carry it like a shopping basket. That first year, all of the trees were delivered in a couple of hours in a single night.
Most were purchased with the bows for five dollars extra.
As more and more people bought more and more trees each year, Jane had to make more and more trips back to refill the wagon—filling it with trees like she was delivering newspapers. It also went from being a single night to several nights spread out across the entire month.
She tried to convince Mr. Cumberland to buy a bigger wagon to save her some trips, but he refused. He was incredibly cheap despite how much more money he made because of Jane.
Mr. Cumberland was always surprised that she never tried to haggle for gas money out of him. He assumed that she was driving them somehow. But Jane never asked for more than the delivery fee, even with more trees to deliver each year. He didn't pry because he was afraid he'd give her the idea to ask for more money.
He was at a total loss as to how she pulled it off. But every morning, he woke up to find the old wagon right where it had been left. Totally empty of the trees it had been stuffed with the night before. She'd kept her word and then some.
Making her deliveries wasn't a total breeze. Jane had almost been spotted a few times.
Fortunately, that first year of delivering, Betsy had practiced with her for an entire week beforehand. Betsy stayed on the ground and went over everywhere that someone might see her towering girlfriend. She'd direct Jane where to hide or how to maneuver herself so she wasn't so easily spotted.
The third year, Betsy got Jane a pointy, green elf hat to wear when she made her deliveries. Betsy jokingly suggested she not try to hide at all and said she should make a show of it for the kids instead.
"Then if they see you, you can say Santa sent his biggest elf for his biggest job." Betsy teased Jane, who blushed at the way she said it.
Betsy had just slipped the hat over Jane's head and kept her hand cupping the back of Jane's head, looking down into her shorter girlfriend's eyes. Jane melted.
Finally, Jane said she would, but only if Betsy dressed up as Santa and rode on her shoulder. It was clear from the sudden change on Betsy's face that she'd never dream of being up that high for a whole night.
It has remained a stealthy, one-woman operation ever since.
But this year, Jane wore the green elf hat the whole night.
She still didn't plan on being seen, but she thought wearing it might make her feel closer to Betsy. She felt silly. She felt even sillier that it kind of worked.
Jane had just about finished the last deliveries of the night for this year's holiday. One house after another, Jane plucked a tree that matched the order from the wagon, reading from a list she kept folded up in her pocket, and set it down at the right address as easily as if it was a milk bottle.
Every year, without fail, a steady snow fell when Jane made her deliveries. It was essential because it covered and filled her enormous shoe prints come morning. She wouldn't be able to pull off her deliveries otherwise without a lot of people wondering why there were size 100-something shoe prints all over town.
And it was vital that she didn't miss a year. Her annual tree route was enough to pay for her own family's holiday and then some. Bobby would have had some very sad Christmas mornings otherwise.
Dark and snow weren't Jane's only yearly delivery traditions. Jane had always looked forward to the very last one of the last night. The biggest tree that Cumberland cut each year was, in fact, Betsy's family tree. Betsy's family had the only house in town that could even hold a tree that size.
Betsy's little sisters got the idea of giving Jane hot chocolate when she arrived. The first year, they made a big production of warming a feed bucket full of hot cocoa for her. The bucket was blessedly brand new and used only for Jane. The girls had even decorated it so it looked more Christmas-y.
They kept it up and were more excited every year about Jane's bucket than they were about leaving milk and cookies out for Santa. At some point in time, each girl grew old enough that they gave up on the milk and cookies—and Santa.
But Jane's bucket had become an annual family tradition for the Carters.
The first year, the hot chocolate was pretty awful. When asked, Jane lied and told them it was delicious. Betsy's youngest sister, Amy, improved the recipe every year as she became a better and better cook. Last year, it was nearly melted chocolate but better.
Jane wished they'd get a bigger bucket if it was going to be that good, but she was too embarrassed to ask.
As Jane always delivered it far past anyone's bedtime, Betsy was charged with keeping the bucket warm over a makeshift campfire in their front yard until Jane arrived.
One of Jane's favorite things about Christmas every year was walking towards Betsy's house and seeing that small fire from a distance. She knew it meant Betsy was waiting for her.
But with Betsy away at school, this was the first and final tree delivery of the year that Jane was expecting to go without.
No fire, no hot chocolate, and worst of all—for the first Christmas of her entire life—there'd be no Betsy. At all.
Jane went a little slower than usual. She felt sad and alone. Again.
She watched her own breath in the cold as she walked. Each step felt like it was only a light dusting of snow, but it had been almost up to her knees before she got big for the night.
Jane knew that seeing Betsy's barren front yard tonight would break her for the thousandth time since she had left. Jane was trying to delay the heartache for as long as she could. She didn't know how much more she could take.
Earlier that week, during one of their long-distance phone calls, for the first time in a long time, Betsy told Jane that she couldn't make it home this year. She had too much work, and it would take too long to get home and back.
She wasn't going to be able to see her until, maybe, spring break and was so incredibly sorry. She had always been a perfectionist when it came to grades, and college was no different.
Jane cried for a long time after that phone call. She had gone to the Carter's house for it since Jane didn't have a phone at her house. Mrs. Carter tried to console her as best she could, but nothing could replace having Betsy at Christmas.
Jane sighed as she reached the point when she usually saw the fire burning in front of Betsy's house. The front yard was pitch black.
She wanted to cry but kept it together, fearing that she'd wake up the whole Carter family at this size from bawling. She'd been enough of a burden on them since Betsy left.
But then Jane saw light from a fire.
She could barely make out a small figure, but really a regular-sized person, next to it. The fire grew stronger and brighter, and Jane gasped.
It was Betsy.
She looked up at Jane with a gleaming smile lit by the catching fire.
"Sorry! I dozed off, and it went out. The bucket's freezing..."
Betsy apologized, holding her hand over her mouth to cover a yawn that interrupted her.
Jane could see she was wearing a sweatshirt with her school's name emblazoned across the front. She had one of her father's heavy overcoats on over it.
She looked gorgeous in the warm light of the fire.
"The time difference... YOU WORE THE HAT?! Ja—"
Before Betsy could finish, she got interrupted not by a yawn but by her feet flying up off the ground. She felt herself whip fast through the air.
Jane had set down the wagon, fallen to her knees, and snatched Betsy up from where she stood in one swift movement.
She brought Betsy up to her face and planted kiss after kiss. She almost engulfed Betsy completely with her lips. Betsy smelled pine all over the gloved hand holding her.
It took Betsy half a second to appreciate that her feet were dangling high over the ground. It wasn't much to Jane but definitely higher than Betsy would have normally been comfortable with.
She felt a swirling rush of feelings and froze inside, waiting for the terror to come. But it didn't. She didn't feel scared, only high.
Even better, Jane was just Jane. There wasn't a drop of fear.
"You're going to drown me!" Betsy finally cried in relief, laughing at the merciless assault from her huge girlfriend.
Jane kept kissing. In this moment, it was more vital to kiss Betsy than breathing. She wrapped her other hand around the one holding Betsy and brought her tiny girlfriend as close to her face as she could manage—still kissing her.
"I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!"
Jane bellowed between kisses. Betsy's bones rattled from the force, and she blinked hard several times, making a face while she opened her jaw to pop her ears.
"I MISSED YOU TOO! But not so loud! The whole town will hear you!"
Betsy raised her hands up defensively to give her face a break, but she was still laughing. She was overjoyed. The dragon she'd been trying to slay for months hadn't reared its ugly head.
She was just Jane again. Sweet, huge, Janey.
"SLOW DOWN! I'm here 'til New Year's! Let me down—DOWN!"
Jane relented and slowly set Betsy back down on the ground.
Jane lowered herself as flat against the snow as she could. Her legs went out behind her, making deep trenches in the soft white powder. She propped herself up on her crossed forearms, setting her chin down on top of them, to get a better look at her girlfriend.
It had been nearly five months since the last time they saw each other in person. They had never been away from each other for so long since they had first met 15 years ago.
They stared at each other in blissful silence.
Jane's eyes were tearing up, and she wanted to grab her again but kept her hands pinned under her head. Betsy looked incredible and somehow sophisticated even in such baggy clothes. Jane could tell she wasn't as lanky as when she left and had finally put on some weight. College really suited her.
By comparison, Jane felt incredibly frumpy from working outside all night and wished she could have made herself up a little if she'd known. Jane reached up and slid the elf hat off.
"Sorry—hi..."
"Hi, bright eyes."
They both stared, grinning at each other like idiots.
"You're growing your hair out..."
"You're growing out... everything," Betsy replied, only half kidding.
Jane looked especially big. Betsy considered that, maybe, it was because she had gone so long without seeing her. Betsy's body had to remember what it was like to be around her again.
Betsy knew that as big as she seemed, this was small for Jane now.
But standing this close, it still seemed like Jane was everywhere. She couldn't pull her eyes away from her big girlfriend. Every slight movement of her face, her favorite-shaped freckles, and those eyes.
Betsy thought Jane's eyes glowed, even in the dark, sometimes. Betsy's heart skipped a beat under their piercing gaze.
Jane rolled her eyes at Betsy's quip.
"'I...uh...I've had the same haircut since we were twelve. And I haven't been running, so I don't have to worry about it getting in the way anymore... What do you think? Do you like it?"
Betsy felt like she was under a microscope. It didn't help feeling like that when Jane's head was taller than Betsy's whole body. Jane looked so perfect like this, and Betsy needed her approval.
"I love it, but I'm surprised they haven't braided it yet."
Jane thought of Betsy's younger sisters' unabated love of braiding hair. They had tried to get Jane to come every week for a new pattern they wanted to try.
"I'm sure I won't escape it before I go back, but I wanted to leave it like this for...tonight. For you."
Jane gulped and bit her lip.
"I'm sorry I sort of...stopped calling. It seemed like I was making things worse. I was telling you about classes and everything going on, and you—"
"I still wanted you to call, though... I guess I didn't say much back..."
"No. You didn't, besides 'Ok' and 'Good' and 'Fine' or 'Wow'..."
Jane squirmed in place, thinking about the calls differently now.
"I thought the letters would be a better idea, but then you never wrote back to those either. Just the once, and it might as well have been a telegram."
Betsy reached into a pocket and pulled out an envelope. It was the single letter Jane had sent back. Jane could see that it looked very worn, like Betsy had read it over and over hundreds, maybe thousands, of times.
Jane swallowed hard and averted her eyes.
"It felt like you were trying to push me away. Why didn't you talk to me, Janey?"
"I wasn't trying to push you away, Bets. I—I was worried that I was pulling you back...and..."
Jane shifted on the ground again, uncomfortable at being so vulnerable after going so long without really speaking.
"You were doing so many amazing things, and you sounded so happy without me, but I..."
They looked stunned at the other one's misunderstanding.
"There really wasn't much to say at the time, to be honest. Every day was the same, only without you in it. I really missed you, Bets. I missed your voice. Your smile. I missed everything about you. All the time. It really hurt."
"It hurt me too! I really missed you TOO, Janey. Terribly. I wished I could have done everything this past semester with you. That's why I was telling you about everything. I thought maybe it'd help make you feel like you were there with me. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry... I only went to your house for that last call because your parents told me that they knew you would call because they gave you an ultimatum..."
"It was a surprise to hear my dad basically threaten me... But they needed to tell me something urgent, and they wanted to make sure I didn't miss it. I'm glad he did."
"I'm glad he did too. I thought you said you didn't have the time it'd take to get home and back? Did your schedule change or something?"
"No—that's why I had to call. They paid for an airplane ticket... and had to give me all the details. You should really see what an airplane looks like on the inside, Janey. It's so different from a bus or train."
Jane was speechless. Betsy smiled again at seeing Jane so flustered.
"A PLANE? You got on a plane! A plane?! How?"
"I—I've been seeing someone..."
Jane's face dropped in horror.
"No! No! No! Not like that! I've been seeing someone for my acrophobia, my fear of heights. A therapist. That's what I've been doing instead of running. Three sessions a week. It was awful at first, but...it's gotten a lot better."
"Obviously! Why didn't you tell me?"
"I—well... I was embarrassed and ashamed. It was so stupid. How could I possibly be scared of you, Janey? I love you so much, and last summer... I couldn't—God, I'm so, so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?"
"Bets there was never anything to forgive. I shouldn't have pushed you like that. I wasn't thinking. I was too... and... It was all my fault. You shouldn't have been embarrassed. But I mean—a plane? A plane...really..."
Jane was still amazed.
"I sat in a window seat—"
"Then why did you tell me you weren't coming home?"
Jane interrupted her, and Betsy's smile disappeared.
"I didn't know that I was... I wasn't sure I could do it! I almost bolted when they were closing the plane door. But I thought about this."
Betsy took a few steps closer to Jane as she spoke, her smile returning.
"I thought of you. And the plane took off and went up higher than I've ever been or could be... I wasn't thinking of you and feeling scared like before."
Betsy reached out and put a hand against Jane's cheek, right on top of one of her favorite freckles.
Jane slipped her gloves off and then quickly wiped a stray tear from her cheek.
"Bets—"
Jane brought a hand close to Betsy and brushed the side of her face with the back of her bent finger. Betsy saw it was the hand she'd bitten years ago. The scar stood out to her in the dark as clear as day.
"When I called you, I really didn't know if I was going to be able to do it. I didn't want to disappoint you if I failed. I'd rather suffer from not seeing you than hurt you...again. I always seem to be the one to hurt you, and I feel so gutted over it. It's been so hard, Janey."
Betsy's guilt-ridden eyes fell to Jane's hand beside her and the bite again. She closed her eyes and exhaled, trying not to cry.
"I know. Believe me, I know. You can't imagine how much I know. It's been impossible for me without you around every day."
Jane tilted her head so that her wall-sized cheek pushed ever so slightly into Betsy's palm.
"I've been hanging onto the idea of seeing you at Christmas, and then you called and said you weren't coming. I cried for so long..."
"I'm really sorry, Janey... It wasn't on purpose. I promise I'll make it up to you."
"What did you—"
Betsy lowered her hand from Jane's face with purpose.
Betsy shrugged off her overcoat and threw it to the side. Then she pulled her sweatshirt up over her head and threw that to the side too.
"Lie down..."
"Oh." Jane felt her heart jump into her throat, and she stopped breathing.
Betsy noticed.
She felt ridiculous directing Jane. She was so massive sprawled out in front of her like this. Betsy felt as small as a field mouse with a tiger, but she'd never felt safer in her life than with Jane right now.
The lingering fear that had haunted her for so long was finally gone.
It was only Janey again.
Jane obeyed and rolled over onto her back, her fingers interlocked over her stomach, nervously waiting and staying still.
Betsy went over to Jane, grabbed handfuls of the rough fabric of her farm coat, and hoisted herself up onto Jane's left shoulder. She stumbled but got back up. She made it to the center of Jane's chest, just in front of the dip down to her throat.
Betsy fell forward and landed, palms first, on either side of Jane's mouth. Betsy held herself up over Jane's lips. Jane's mouth was wider than Betsy's shoulders. She wanted to fall into them completely.
"Ow..." Jane jokingly complained.
"Oh, stop, you big baby."
Betsy lowered herself down until her own lips were hovering barely above Jane's.
Jane switched to breathing through her nose. Betsy's longer hair rustled with Jane's every quickening inhale and exhale. Betsy smiled at how much she missed this.
She kissed Jane long and hard. Jane could barely tell, but it was everything she ever wanted.
"Your parents are going to see us."
"Well, everyone is visiting my grandma and staying there for the night. I got a pass since I've been away. They wanted us to have some time to ourselves."
Betsy kissed her again, and Jane pressed her lips together to carefully kiss her back. Jane's lips pressed against Betsy's whole face, and she stopped, staying still so Betsy could be in control. Betsy's mouth wandered across the softness of Jane's lips, touching down in a different spot each time.
"They won't be back 'til tomorrow afternoon... or I guess this afternoon, so..."
Betsy felt Jane's lips briefly curl into a smile below her.
"While you were gone, I found out a lot of things. Terrible things... things about me. And my parents. I need to tell you..."
"I want you to tell me everything. But not now. It can wait. We have time. We have time..."
Betsy had missed her. Far more than she expected. But she was truly surprised at how much she missed her this way—overwhelmingly gigantic.
It had been so long that the sensation deep in Betsy's stomach had returned, like it did the very first time she saw her big. She'd been awestruck then, and she was again now. Betsy thought of a single line from Thoreau's climb up Mount Katahdin—
What is this Titan that has possession of me?
Betsy was breathing hard as she kissed her. Jane looked so pretty against the white snow, filling Betsy's whole field of vision. Every imperfectly perfect detail of her is magnified.
"I could try to shrink back dow—"
Betsy pushed both of her hands against the center of Jane's lips to shush her.
"No. Don't try. I want you... like this."
"Really?" Jane spoke around Betsy's little hands, taken aback.
She bent her neck to look at Betsy's face. Betsy looked embarrassed but nodded.
"It's—I didn't realize. I missed you...big. I want—"
"Say no more."
Without warning, Jane lifted Betsy up off her face. Jane held her girlfriend steadily in one hand and rolled over.
Jane made sure to check that the fire and Betsy's house were in the clear as she shifted. She didn't want the Carters to come back with a hole the size of her shoe through the foyer where they usually put the tree with Jane's help.
And she wanted that hot chocolate later.
Jane lowered Betsy down until the back of Jane's hand was flat between her little girlfriend and the snow-covered ground. Betsy was sprawled out on her back in the center of Jane's bare palm, watching her intensely and warmed by her immense body.
Even without the gloves, Jane's hands smelled like the trees. Betsy was going to smell like Christmas for days, but she didn't care. The smell of pine would make her think of this for the rest of her life.
Snow from the ground and sky slid off the sides of Jane's back like closing stage curtains as she hunched over her girlfriend. The night sky, and everything else, was blocked out.
In every way possible, there was only Jane to Betsy, and she knew that it'd always be that way.
Even if Jane wasn't the largest living thing on the planet, she would still be the prettiest, kindest, and best girl Betsy had ever met or would meet. No one could hope to compete in Betsy's eyes, especially like this.
A couple of other freshmen, and one senior, tried hard to woo Betsy her first semester. But how could they stand the slightest chance when Betsy knew she could come home to Jane? To this?
The idea of leaving again and being surrounded by ordinary people seemed like a punishment.
Jane had a ravenous look across her freckled face.
"Janey—" Betsy whimpered up at her doting captor.
Betsy's needy tone made Jane's smirk turn into a huge grin. She unconsciously licked her lips.
"Wild nights, wild nights—I’ve heard it in the chillest land... Yet never in extremity did it ask a crumb of me," Betsy whispered.
"What?" Jane whispered concerned, not hearing what she said and thinking something was wrong.
"Before I go back, I'm getting a phone line installed at your house as a Christmas present. Because I am going to call you all the time and you're going to answer. And talk! I don't care if you're too big for the house and Bobby has to put the receiver out the window for you."
They both chuckled together, and Jane lowered her face to Betsy and brushed the tip of her nose against her chest. Jane pulled her face away, smiling down at Betsy.
"There are things I want to say to you that I don't want my parents around to hear."
"Bets—" Jane started, flustered about what Betsy might say over the phone and equally worried about the cost.
"Janey! I won't call collect, so it won't cost you anything. But I swear to god if you make me fly all the way out here again just to force you to answer the damn phone." Betsy warned.
Betsy's threat was greatly diminished by her current position, totally exposed and small enough compared to Jane that she didn't even fill her naked palm.
"You'd fly all the way back just for that?" Jane huffed in disbelief.
"How many times do I have to tell you before you hear me, Janey? I'd do anything for you."
Jane was on the verge of tears and nodded.
"I kind of wish you kept the hat on..."
Jane laughed, and Betsy smiled.
"I'll make it up to you... Merry Christmas, Bets..."
Jane lowered her face back down to Betsy in her waiting palm.
as jane and betsy saw jaws when they were 19, and for betsy’s birthday, we can determine they were both born in 1956. now what month is uncertain because jaws ran for 14 weeks… damn you jaws’ ridiculous runtime.
the headcanon? i forgot. sue me.
- 🌌 anon
Betsy is slightly older - 20 - when they saw Jaws to Jane's 19.
like I, who read orwell's more famous works and fahrenheit 451 at the ripe age of 10, and had an insatiable hunger for political commentaries, Betsy read very inappropriate books at a young age. No Betsy stop reading of mice and men you're going to get traumatized you're 12 stop please
me projecting my typical childhood love of depressing dystopia:
-🌌anon
Oh boy did she. Susie is more political than her big sister, but Betsy would have definitely read all of those (especially since Of Mice and Men was one of the big banned books in the 60s which seems super weird to think about today).
But all of her younger sisters benefitted from Betsy blazing a trail for them.
By the time we first see her parents they seem totally unphased by their eldest. So here's something from an abandoned intro for something I wrote that gives more detail.
***
Betsy had already taught herself to read by the first grade. When she was in first grade, her parents went to a parent-teacher conference the second half of the school year to try and understand how their daughter had failed a "library" class.
They didn't even know first graders could fail something. Especially the library, which was supposed to be just showing the kids how libraries worked, and then they could check out their own books.
The teacher explained that Betsy had been taking out books that were far too advanced and making some of the other kids feel bad. After numerous warnings, Betsy continued, but it was the most recent book she had checked out that finally crossed the line for her teacher.
Mr. Carter had never been prouder of his eldest, and Mrs. Carter seemed confused.
"I don't understand." She paused, looking at the teacher's very serious demeanor. "What book did she check out?"
The teacher cleared her throat and shifted in her seat.
"It was the librarian's fault really. We had two copies of it and she swore that she removed both of them for indecency but she must have been mistaken because Betsy somehow managed to find it..."
The teacher paused, bracing herself, "Giovanni's Room."
"Giovanni's Room? That sounds harmless..." Mrs. Carter asked, looking at her husband, who appeared to be trying to keep a straight face, sucking his lips into his mouth.
He loved James Baldwin and had all of his books in his home library. He knew full well what was coming and was struggling to contain himself.
The teacher cleared her throat again, clearly searching for the right words.
"Mrs. Carter—that book is about..."
The teacher leaned closer to them, and her voice dropped to a whisper, "M-men..."
She shifted as if she were revealing the secret name of God or something else unspeakable.
"Men having…gay sex…"
Mrs. Carter's confused expression morphed into one of complete disdain at the teacher. Mr. Carter was beside his wife, stifling a slow-building giggle that threatened to turn into outright cackling.
headcanon of the day, because i’ve developed an attachment to these characters. bobby reads picture books to animals. sometimes wild animals, sometimes domestic ones. idk he would do that
- 🌌 anon
I fully support this and kids sleeping with their cows are one of my fav genres. Bobby would have absolutely fallen asleep reading to milkshake
off topic headcanon, betsy bakes. too much. excessively so. her parents come home and there's a new batch of some pastry every day.
- 🌌 anon
HA! I am here for the Bobby-stans. I have retconned him a lot. Originally he was younger and didn't have a good relationship with Jane. That wasn't working and felt wrong, so I aged him up a bit and put some more thought into it.
Betsy cannot bake or cook at all. That's why in the first installment, when Jane woke up after the tornado, she said Bobby "helped" make sandwiches, which means he did everything.
He appears more later on, and you see he's got a whole routine down for Jane when she comes back down. It's one of the things that makes him the proudest about being able to help her with something.
Jane can and does cook and bake. She had to because it's cheaper. So when she can fit in a kitchen, she usually has something cooking. She doesn't make a lot of different things, and nothing is fancy, but it's good. She's also a food pusher and always trying to get Betsy to eat more.
One of Betsy's youngest sisters, who has not appeared yet is an aspiring chef. Her hero is Julia Childs, who was super popular then, and forces Betsy to translate French recipes for her and cooks with Jane sometimes.
Only two of Betsy's four younger sisters have so far—Susie and Patty—which becomes very important later.
I don't know why I can't stop writing about them. I've writen 40K words in the past couple of weeks. Everytime I stop more keeps coming.
The next chapter I'm planning to post might be my favorite thing I've ever written out of any of my stories so far.
Jane finally makes it into the fallout shelter under the barn. Bobby and her talk about what it all means.
Jane faces an impossible choice.
Content warning: Adult themes and language.
Word Count: 2,400
***
Even though Doctor Cohen had shown Jane where the fallout shelter entrance was months ago, she had delayed going inside of it. She wasn't sure why she kept delaying and finding other things to do besides going inside. On some level Jane knew that if she didn't look inside, then maybe it could stay a story Doctor Cohen told her.
Looking inside would make it all real and not something that she could dismiss. And it hurt Jane to know that it was something that had been kept from her all of this time. Her whole life had been shaped by something everyone close to her but her knew about.
She'd have to accept that her father, for whatever reason and intention, had lied to her face rather than be honest with her. Jane thought that maybe if he had, the past few years since her compulsion had first acted up would have been easier.
One day, after passing it for the fifth time while doing other things in the barn, she opened the trapdoor and went down inside.
As if her compulsion knew her inner struggle and decided to make it that much harder for her, as it so often did, she hadn't quite come back down to her usual size and was just under seven feet tall.
Getting into the fallout shelter was a tight squeeze, but Jane managed. She was surprised by how high the ceilings were. Her hair on the top of her head just brushed it without having to hunch down.
She couldn't believe what she was seeing.
The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves and racks. Some contained books, large pieces of paper, and all manner of scientific equipment; she couldn't begin to guess what the purpose of each was.
All of this had been here the whole time, and she had no idea.
She wandered around for over an hour looking at every single thing, trying to make sense of it. There was no chance she could, but she felt like it might be the closest she'd get to her real mother.
And it was the closest she'd get to knowing who her parents really were now that they were gone.
She came across a picture of the three of them amongst the myriad of confusing things. Jane was just a baby, bundled and held in her mother's arms, with her father hugging her mother from the side.
Tears started streaming down her face as she looked at her first family she never knew.
"Jay? You okay?"
Jane turned and looked down towards the voice. It was her little brother Bobby—or rather half brother. He was nearly the same height as she was now... when she was her usual size.
Jane wiped her eyes with both hands, then shook them at her side.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Bobby. It's just a lot."
"No kidding... Is all this stuff about you?"
Bobby turned around once, scanning the walls from floor to ceiling in wonder. It was like something out of one of his comics.
"Are you like a superhero or something like that?"
Jane laughed in spite of herself.
"Something like that, I guess... I don't..."
She stopped to stare at the photograph again, lost in thought. She looked back at Bobby, who was now touching stuff instead of looking at things. Everything he was fiddling with seemed very delicate, and Jane just hoped nothing was dangerous.
"I guess you know Momma isn't my mom now, right?"
Bobby turned and looked at her curiously.
"So what does that make us?"
"You're still my brother, and I'm your sister. Well, actually, half-brother and half-sister. Same father but different mothers."
Jane said it with a hint of sadness. Bobby could be annoying, as only little brothers could be sometimes. But she still loved him, and she had spent all of her teen years caring for him like he was her son.
She would have done it even if she had known then what she did now.
Bobby nodded.
"Well, I don't really give a shit, do you?"
"Bobby!"
"What? Do you?"
"Yes—I mean no! I mean, watch your damn language!"
"Look who's talking."
Jane took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose, then smiled. She couldn't tell if he was pushing her buttons naturally or on purpose to try and distract her.
"So what are you going to do with all of this stuff?"
Jane looked at him and then looked around again.
What could she do with it? All of this was far beyond her or anyone she knew and could possibly trust. Betsy was the smartest person she knew, and even she would be baffled by this.
In her last letter, Betsy wrote that she was going to major in either literature or poetry, to her father's chagrin at picking something so impractical. Maybe this might get her to reconsider.
Jane's eyes went back to something out of everything else that kept grabbing her attention. It was a piece of graph paper taped to the wall. It took her a few seconds before she realized what it was amongst everything else in her parent's improvised lab.
At the top of the paper was handwriting she'd guessed belonged to her real mother. It read "Jane's Potential Growth."
There was an arrow going from the left side, curving upwards until it went off the page.
Two words, in what she knew was her father's handwriting, were in big blocky capital letters right in the center of the graph.
"NO LIMIT?"
Jane felt a million different things as she read and thought of what it meant over and over. None of them were good.
"I don't care, you know."
Jane turned to look down, hearing Bobby again. His face was contorted into an expression she didn't recognize.
"I don't care that we're only half whatever. You—"
He stopped like he was having trouble turning his thoughts into words. Expressing feelings was a tall order for a thirteen-year-old boy.
"You have..."
Jane lowered a hand onto Bobby's shoulder and rubbed it gently to let him off the hook. She could guess what he wanted to say and was thankful that he was trying.
He reached up and put his smaller hand on hers and squeezed it as best he could.
They let go of each other, and Jane reached out and took the photo of her and her parents off the wall. She flipped it over and looked at the back. It was more of her mother's handwriting.
Little Jane is home! was scrawled in faded pen.
The month and year were below it. Jane pursed her lips thinking... Little Jane... if only her mother knew. She slipped the photo into her shirt pocket and strode towards the trapdoor of the fallout shelter.
"Come on, Bobby, let's get out of here for now. And I don't want you playing down here by yourself. Ever. You might bust something. Got it?"
"Why? Are you afraid I'll get superpowers too?"
Jane thought about what Doctor Cohen said about the element that made her the way she is and what happened to the reactor. And the test subjects buried somewhere deep in Chicago.
"I am 100% sure that is not what would happen if you mess around with this stuff. It's more likely that you'll make the whole county explode or implode or something even worse. So don't even think about it."
Bobby looked around at the stuff he had been carelessly messing with just moments ago. He couldn't tell if Jane was kidding or not. As he took it all in again, it suddenly felt like he was surrounded by venomous snakes.
Bobby followed Jane out of the fallout shelter. He watched his sister climb out in almost a single step. Just as he started up, Jane reached down, offering him a hand. He took hers, and she lifted him up the rest of the way.
He didn't care that Jane didn't think she was a superhero. He did. He just wished he had an easier time telling her. She needed to know how much he meant to her and how much he appreciated everything that she did for him. He wished he could do more for her like she'd done for him.
He'd seen her sad lately. Very sad. Very often. He heard her crying from outside on nights when she was too big for the house, when she thought he was asleep.
Because of how big she was on some nights, it'd be pretty impossible for Bobby not to hear her.
Their mother—his mother—had largely given up on everything other than drinking. He didn't even know where she was right now. It was Jane who made sure he had food, clothes, and presents at Christmas and birthdays these past few years.
Jane even still packed his lunch and made sure he got to school on time and did his homework. And somehow she managed to scrape together enough money to keep the bills paid, the water running, and the lights on. He didn't know what he would have done without her.
He loved her so much.
Once Bobby was clear, Jane swiped one leg against the heavy steel door, and it slammed shut behind them.
"Are you okay?" Jane asked, looking down at Bobby, who seemed out of it.
"Uh yeah, just thinking about the stuff in there and dinner, I guess."
"Sorry, I forgot. I don't really get hungry when I'm... Let's go inside, and I'll see what we have."
"You don't have to do that."
"It's no big deal. I can—"
"Thank you!"
Bobby blurted out, and Jane looked surprised.
"Bobby, it's just din—"
"No... everything. Everything you've been doing... for me. I know you didn't have to, especially since I'm only your half-brother and all, and maybe if I wasn't around, you'd be able to go like you want to... with Betsy. You wouldn't be stuck here. I'm sorry."
Jane bent down on her knees to look in Bobby's eyes easier.
"Bobby, even if you weren't around, and I'm really glad that you are, I wouldn't have gone with Betsy to college anyway. It wouldn't be safe for me. And it wouldn't be fair to her to miss out because she's constantly worrying about me. About me doing...this...in a real city. "
Jane said, gesturing to herself by dipping her head.
"Would it be so bad if people knew? It's not like you've ever hurt anyone or stomped on anything, right?"
Jane knew she'd never hurt anyone, but she had accidentally crushed lots of things over the years. Thankfully, it was never anything that important or that could be traced back to her.
"I mean no and, hopefully, I never will. But still I don't think people would take it very well. Thank you for keeping it secret. It means a lot."
"Of course not. Besides, who would believe me that my sister is a superhero?"
"I'm not a—"
As they stood in the barn, the town's emergency siren wailed loudly in the distance. The few animals they still had, like Milkshake the cow, didn't like the sound, and Jane walked over to settle them down.
"It's not tornado season... What in the hell could that be?" Jane wondered as she patted Milkshake's forehead and then pet her in smooth, steady strokes.
Bobby ran into the house and was gone for a few moments. He ran back out to the barn in a frenzy.
"Jane, it's the dam!"
"What?"
"It's on the radio! They said that the dam is going to break and everyone downriver has to evacuate!"
Jane looked at Bobby in horror. It had been raining rather hard this past week, but nothing that stood out as that unusual to Jane. It must have finally gotten to the old dam that was east of their farm.
Their farm was so far out that it'd be well out of harm's way. But a lot of the other people they knew, like Mrs. Rosen, would be right in the flood path. There's no way everyone could get safe in time.
Jane clenched her jaw.
"Jay, you have to do something!"
"What?"
"You know!" Bobby made a gesture with his hands to signify her growing.
"Bobby, I can't do that!"
"Yes, you can! You're probably the only one who could do something! If you got as big as you did with that tornado, you could do something... right?"
Jane stayed quiet, petting Milkshake. She hated that Bobby was right but didn't know what to do. She'd spent so many years being extra cautious and going out of her way at every turn to not be seen or discovered.
Showing up hundreds of feet tall in the middle of the day would throw all of that away. Doctor Cohen had told her how her dad died to make sure that never happened.
She felt like she couldn't betray that now.
"Jane, people might die..." Bobby pleaded.
She didn't know what to do.
"Jesus Christ..."
"Language, Jay!"
Jane shot Bobby a look that made him wither. She kept petting Milkshake as if it would reveal the answer like a Magic 8-Ball.
Jane closed her eyes and bent her head straight back up towards the barn ceiling. She opened them staring at the rickety shingles that needed replacing years ago. She felt the picture in her shirt pocket against her chest.
She thought about what Doctor Cohen told her about her real mom.
Jane knew what she would do.
"Fuck it."
Jane let go of Milkshake and walked over to the barn door. She pulled the photo out of her shirt pocket and pinned it to a cork board she kept there. She pressed it flat gently, her fingers staying there for half a second.
She grabbed a pair of old work gloves that were on a stool she and pulled them on. They were tight, but they still fit. She pulled an old baseball cap off a nail and squeezed it on over her hair.
Her long red braid was too long to tuck in and hide. She'd have to live with it.
Jane pulled a bandana from her back pocket and tied it around her face, covering it from the nose down.
"Are you going to go rob a bank?"
"Shut up."
Jane walked out of the barn towards the dam, growing bigger with every step.
"I knew you were a superhero..."
Bobby watched his big half-sister stomping away quickly.
