ok my darling Ellie (aka the one and only @lactosefreevanillayoghurt) was sad, but since I’m purely confined to the restrictions of the internet and can’t hug/send a literal care package, here's one in the form of a fic.
Things had been hard for Kate lately. Hell her whole life had been a bit of a rollercoaster to put it into one of Rileys peppy metaphors, but lately was just too much. Less than a month ago she’d lost her best friend, and not the going to college losing she’d anticipated, but murder. And suddenly she was on her own, in a way she could never have comprehended because before that when she was lonely she would be saved by Chess, but now it was just her, and the haphazard remains of an already broken team.
That's why the arrival of the mysterious box got her so intrigued. She knew it wasn’t her parents, they could barely remember her birthday let alone be aware of just how much she was hurting, and without Chess, there wasn’t really anyone else. “stop thinking about Chess” she thought, and turned back to the box to distract herself from her thoughts. It was medium size, basic brown sorta thing you could pick up at the postal center, wrapped with an orange and black ribbon that finally gave a clue as to the mystery sender. Sighing she unwrapped it, very much not in the mood from a Cairo prank, and opened it up, half expecting something to pop out (as bravado as she tried to be, Kate was seriously not good with jump scares). instead, nestled amongst some orange tissue paper and black shreddings she found some items, each with a lil tag attached. She picked up the first one, a photo album of team photos artfully arranged with an almost hazardous amount of stickers. “clearly Annleigh” she thought, turning over the card to prove her suspicions. “I’m just surprised there’s no bible quotes hidden in here” Kate mumbled to herself, but found her view constantly falling onto Chess in the photos. A familiar pang of loss in her chest, she went to pick up the next item in hopes of distracting herself. The first thing her hands made contact with was a bag of mixed candy, and she quickly realized they were all her favorites, jolly ranchers, red vines, m&m's and reeses. “How did they know that?" she mused as she popped a grape flavoured jolly rancher into her mouth, turning the tag over to see in clear bubbly writing “Reeses (and other candy) from Reese xox”, and despite herself she smiled, glad to see the fellow team member reclaiming the nickname. Next was one of the bigger items in the box, a plushy toy tiger with a silly face. A bit on the nose, but it was still very cute and Kate absentmindedly hugged it as she read the note that was very clearly in Mattie’s, the youngest teammember, scrawled cursive handwriting, saying “I hope Mr Tiger is a good substitute if you ever need a hug, love from the littlest tiger!”, making Kate grin as she remembered the perky freshman overexcited but well-welcomed hugs. Underneath all this was a card, signed by all the tigers with lil motivational messages, and a target voucher from cairo, “original” Kate thought, but immediately thought of another flannel she wanted and made sure to tuck it safely in her wallet. Once she’d emptied the box she realised they’d missed a team member, and just assumed “hey Eva’s new, and was barely a part of the chaos anyway, it’s chill they didn’t add anything”, but her heart was saying otherwise and sank a little, that was until she found the final slip of paper. Scrawled in that beautiful handwriting she may or may not have memorised, Kate read the message: “hey, this is from Eva, here’s my number and we can get coffee? Or tea if you like!” and Kate smiled, for the first time in quite a while.
