Reintegration into society after what happened on Elegia was hard. Try as she might, the fact that everybody knew her face and knew what happened made things all the worse. Most days when the Red Haired Pirates were docked, Uta either spent that time on the ship or, if she was lucky and could sneak away when nobody was close, far from any living soul.
It was during one such time that her very own violet eyes made contact with lilac ones, causing her to freeze. ❝ D-don't come any closer... ❞
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: Yelena has been having nightmares that makes her question the nature of her relationship with Natasha. Unfortunately, a misstep in a mission causes Natasha to do something that may or may not accidentally confirm those fears. Was Yelena right to be worried after all?
Hey guys! Got another one for you! This one goes HEAVY on the angst as I have used these characters to portray feelings that I have had in my life as well as a current situation I’m in. I love using the sisters as projecting for my own issues lol 😂
Also thank you to @the-widow-sisters for helping me come up with the concept of the kidnappers being former widows and for the inspiration drawn from some of the fics from her series. 💖 I hope I made it enough of my own that it won’t seem like I’m stealing which I would NEVER do 😓
A/N: Brooke is an astronaut making her way back to Earth, reflecting on loneliness and the mysterious woman in a bar back home she can’t stop thinking about. The basic premise of this is inspired by the short story “The Second Kind of Loneliness” by George R.R. Martin, with a lot of liberties taken. It is a little experimental, and with that being said, I would really appreciate some feedback on this. Thank you to Writ for betaing and always encouraging me, you’re the best <3 <3. Title from Space Oddity by David Bowie because I’m basic.
—
The emptiness of space stares at Brooke Lynn Hytes, and she stares right back.
She’s alone as her ship nears home, though she wasn’t supposed to be. She’s not even supposed to be in the captain’s chair. But in some ways, it suits her. Loneliness always has.
Loneliness is easier in space. Understandable, even. Who could look at such blackness, spreading in every direction, never ending, and not feel lonely, like just a speck of dust?
But on Earth, there’s no excuse. There’s no excuse for sitting in noisy bars, watching people laugh and dance and connect, and not having the words to join them. No excuse for watching people buy each other drinks, watching hands creep toward each other across a sticky bar table, watching people walk out arm-in-arm to go home together, to share a warm bed, and going home alone. There’s no excuse for being lonely when companionship and friendship are mere feet away, taunting her.
Brooke would sit and stare at her empty glass, her insides emptier than all of space, before going home to her empty apartment, not even a cat or dog running up to see her, because what would she do with it during long training hours and the time spent up in the stars?
She fiddles with the controls, making sure the ship is at the proper angle to re-enter Earth, blinking to restore her blurry vision. She’s been awake for three days, no one to trade sleeping shifts with, no one in the empty seat next to her.
She hasn’t cried since it happened. Since Captain Rogers went out on the ship to make repairs and his tether snapped, sending him out into space, nothing to stop his drifting. Mission control wouldn’t want her to cry. Emotions aren’t supposed to get in the way of the mission, aren’t supposed to cloud her judgment. Nothing is supposed to get in the way of the mission. It’s why they encouraged Brooke and Rogers not to form any relationships once mission planning began, not to have any strings on Earth that could be severed in the mission.
Brooke obeyed, not that it was hard for her to do so. It was easier, really, to say that she was sitting and watching people talk while staying silent herself because she had an important space mission coming up, rather than having to call herself a failure for not knowing what to say to someone. For saying the wrong thing so many times that she no longer bothered to say anything at all. There’s no one to say anything to in space. Space doesn’t listen.
Brooke obeyed, but Rogers–he had a wife and a young son, a family that expected him to come back, had probably counted down the days, until a call from the space center made the countdown worthless. He had a picture of them pinned to the dash. Brooke couldn’t bear to have them smiling at her anymore, and put it in her suit for safekeeping, to bring it home to a family that won’t be smiling like they are in the picture. A family who will miss him and who, even if they won’t admit it, will somewhere deep down always resent Brooke for being the one who survived. But she understands.
She resents herself too.
There would have been no one to miss her, no one to even know she was gone. The only person who might notice at all is A’keria, bartender at the bar Brooke goes to every Thursday, who gives Brooke a root beer and a little bowl of pretzels and asks how she’s doing. Brooke wonders if A’keria has noticed her missing the past month, if she felt the urge to grab a bottle of root beer on Thursdays. If Brooke can pretend she’s that important.
The real reason she goes back to the bar isn’t for the root beer or pretzels or ambiance–noisy, but a little less crowded than most bars, not as much neon decor–but because of the woman that’s always there. She’s friends with A’keria, and Brooke knows her name starts with a V, because that’s what A’keria calls her. Sometimes Brooke lets herself wonder what V stands for. Victoria, maybe, or Valerie? But somehow they don’t seem to fit.
V has become part of Brooke’s orbit, the sight of her at one of the tall bar tables on Thursdays restoring the axis of Brooke’s frantic mind, keeping herself and the world in place. Sometimes V even appears in Brooke’s dreams, leaving Brooke’s arms empty and aching after V was nestled inside them in the dream.
V is the kind of person everyone wants to know. The kind of person who alters the world and people around her, the kind of person whose presence will always induce smiles and laughs and hugs, her absence felt, things boring and lifeless without her. The kind of person who would leave you laughing at something she said days later, trying some new food because you saw how wide her eyes got when she ate it and wanted to experience the same joy yourself, though it won’t compare to the joy V brings. V would leave an imprint, on hearts and in the places she went, even the bar stool she sits on soaking up some of her magic, any beds she slept on bearing her imprint, the pillows smelling like her days later.
Brooke leaves no imprint in her own bed, the mattress still smooth and unchanged after she tosses and turns on it. She leaves no imprint anywhere, her body wispy and hazy rather than solid. Sometimes she wonders if she’ll go to grab something one day and have her hand pass right through it. She doesn’t make up someone’s world, and she doesn’t let people in hers. Safer, that way. Easier. Especially in her line of work. But Brooke doesn’t know if she’ll be in this line of work much longer. She doesn’t know if she can do this again, if she can stop hearing Rogers scream over her ear comm, stop having her muscles seize up like they did when she accepted she couldn’t help him. If she’ll ever be able to stop seeing him float away, grasping at the stars desperately. If she can let her feet leave solid ground again.
Brooke sighs and rubs furiously at her eyes. Maybe the sleep deprivation is messing with her head. They’ll test for that back home. There will be all kinds of evaluations when she gets back. Physical and psychological and technological. Brooke honestly doesn’t know if she’ll pass any of them, but she can’t quite bring herself to care. She’s tired. She’s so tired.
The ship dips into Earth’s atmosphere, and as the ship rocks back and forth all Brooke can think is that she’ll get to see trees again. Short trees, skinny trees, big, thick trees with wide branches like the ones Brooke used to climb when she was a kid, the entire world in her view when she was perched atop a sturdy branch. Bright green trees offering shade from summer sun and trees with golds and oranges and reds swaying like jewels and trees bare except for a dusting of sugary snow.
The ship touches down and slides through the muddy field, jostling her in the captain’s seat. She crawls out of the ship and onto grass, and she pulls off her gloves to feel the soft, springy grass under her fingers. Brooke rips her helmet off and sucks in Earth’s air for the first time in weeks, the pure oxygen overwhelming, making her chest feel like it’s about to burst as the collection team, led by Yvie, heads over to her.
“Major Hytes?” Yvie asks.
Brooke registers that Yvie’s mouth is moving, but she can’t make her own mouth answer. The world is too bright, too loud, her ears ringing and eyes burning. She tries to stand but gray swoops into her vision, and she drops back to her knees, swallowing back the bile rising in her throat. It’s all too much, the feeling of being back on Earth, being home, too much for her body to stand.
“Major Hytes–Brooke?” Yvie asks, her features softening when she sees how badly Brooke is shaking. She comes closer and Brooke throws herself at Yvie’s skinny legs, needing something to hold, something to feel, to prove that she’s here, that she’s solid and no longer weightless in space.
“Hey, Brooke, it’s okay.” Yvie reaches down and gently tucks Brooke’s hair behind her ears, a gesture Brooke never thought she’d see from Yvie, who rarely leaves her engineering office, and maybe it’s the mere presence of a human, of a human touch, but tears spring in her eyes. “They’re gonna take care of you, okay? Everything’s gonna be fine.”
More people come rushing toward her, helping her up and leading her to the van that will bring them back to base. She can hear them talking, but vaguely, like she’s listening from underwater, as they help her sit in the van.
Yvie sits next to her, in the seat where Rogers should have been, and Brooke wishes her mouth would work to thank Yvie for sparing her from another empty seat.
Someone holds a water bottle to her lips. Brooke takes one sip and pulls her head back, body curling in on itself as she throws it all back up. She’s still shaking, still struggling for breath, even as Yvie pats her knee, which is comforting though Brooke can’t feel it through her heavy suit. The rest of the team exchange worried looks as they help her into base and set her up in a medical bed.
They remove her suit and all the layers underneath, until Brooke is shivering in her thin base layer and Yvie’s assistant, Scarlet, wraps a blanket around her trembling shoulders.
The med team swarms her bed, shining a light into her eyes that’s so bright it makes her flinch backward, talking about blood pressure and mental state, all the tests they need to do—
“Can’t you give her a damn minute?” Yvie shoots dirty looks at them all.
One of the med team looks at her questioningly, and Brooke just nods, barely a second passing before there’s a thermometer under her tongue and a blood pressure cuff slithering around her arm and a cold stethoscope against her chest making her teeth chatter.
“Temp’s 99.1, probably a stress response—”
“Blood pressure’s high—”
“Set up an IV line—”
Brooke closes her eyes as the murmurs continue, and she sleeps for the first time in days.
—
Opening her eyes to the glaring white room is like opening her eyes in space for the first time, everything bright and strange and scary. Her mind lags for a few seconds before she remembers she’s home, on solid ground. She presses her call button and a doctor comes in, checking her monitors and scribbling on his chart. He says that she has the IV to rehydrate her but they’d like her to try food, just some Jello, before they run more tests. Brooke refuses, her stomach twisting at the thought of putting anything in it, but when they say she can pick the flavor she relents, a tray with strawberry Jello and a spoon set in front of her.
She and Rogers would talk about what their first meals would be when they got back, when they could eat real food instead of the freeze-dried rations, when they didn’t have to stay under a certain weight. Brooke’s answer would change daily: Pizza with a crispy crust and extra cheese dangling off the sides. A thick cheeseburger, juice dripping down her wrists, beside a mountain of golden, crispy French fries that were soft and pillowy inside. A stack of fluffy pancakes drowning in syrup, chocolate chips inside warm and melted.
Now, she picks up her spoon with unsteady hands—so small and frail-looking without her thick gloves—and blindly scoops up Jello so tasteless she might as well be eating the plastic container it’s in.
For a few days, it’s like she’s exchanged one ship for another. The bed is just as small and cramped and suffocating, and Brooke is trapped inside it, tethered by her IV, unable to get up unless a doctor or nurse is with her, and she nearly cries with relief when they say her vitals are normal and she’ll discharged after the psych evaluation.
They send in another doctor for the psych evaluation. Brooke tonelessly gives the answers she knows they want. She passes, but when she’s discharged a few days later, Yvie discreetly slips her business cards for a therapist and a psychiatrist.
Brooke leaves and she’s unsure if she’ll ever be back. She can quit, she can resign due to health reasons, teach college kids or work in a damn planetarium, but she doesn’t think she can do this again. She doesn’t want to work for a place where crying compromised a mission, where they tell the public she’s doing excellent after the mission, rather than saying Brooke still hears Rogers screaming because then she would ruin their image.
She brings the picture to Rogers’ family and apologizes until her voice goes hoarse, but his wife won’t hear a word of it. She wraps Brooke in a fierce hug and tells her not to blame herself but to go out there and live.
There’s a lot of love and laughs to be had in this universe, a lot of living to be done, and Brooke thinks she owes it to Rogers—owes it to herself—to finally do some of that living.
Brooke takes an Uber to A’keria’s bar, the only possible place she can think of being tonight, because she can’t sit in her bare apartment. She needs the noise, needs the people, after all those days of silence, of an empty ship and even emptier space in front of her.
She slips out of the car and gasps as she looks up at the stars, heart light like she’s seeing them for the first time.
Up in space, the stars are different, bigger and brighter and more beautiful than you can imagine on earth. Close enough to touch, to reach out and grab a piece of starlight. But maybe they’re too close. Maybe you aren’t supposed to be so close to something that beautiful, because eventually, what stole your breath the first time you saw just becomes the background as your ship moves through space, completely unremarkable and even boring after a few days.
Down on Earth, the beauty stands, as you look up and imagine being among the stars. Down here, they aren’t close enough to touch. They are just close enough to dream, and maybe in this case, the dream is better.
V is the first thing Brooke sees when she opens the door, the world righting itself, all the confusion and frustration swirling inside Brooke calming down.
She’s prettier than Brooke has ever seen her, like she’s infused with starlight, brown hair soft and shiny, smooth skin glowing under the dim lights. She tosses her head back in laughter and Brooke feels some urge, like she knows everyone around V does, to be in on the joke, to laugh with her.
Brooke makes her way across the room, heart pounding as she nears the table. She looks right into V’s eyes, a warm brown that burns with the light of all the stars, and Brooke can see the two of them reflected in her gaze, going on museum trips and kissing under the stars, making Brooke forget the world was ever empty when she’s in V’s embrace.
“I’m Brooke,” Brooke says, face flushing red as Vanessa smiles, as she shoos away her friend and asks Brooke to sit.
“I’m Vanessa.”
Vanessa. Brooke can’t speak, because of course the name she didn’t think of is the perfect name, one that fits her wide grin and rosy cheeks so perfectly. Vanessa.
“I, uh, I’ve seen you here before,” Vanessa continues. “Miss Root Beer, right?” She laughs nervously.
Brooke smiles. “That’s me.”
“You haven’t been around,” Vanessa says, almost sadly, and Brooke’s heart nearly stops. Vanessa has not only seen her, but noticed her, expected to see her and was disappointed when she didn’t.
“Yeah, I, um, I was on a long trip,” Brooke says.
“Anywhere exciting?”
Space, Brooke thinks. But she doesn’t want to do this right now. Next week she’ll call the number on those cards and make the appointments, try to talk to a therapist, but for now she just wants to be Brooke, happy and talking to someone on Earth, not lost in the stars.
“Nope,” Brooke says. “Do you—do you want to grab some pizza? There’s a place down the street.” Her heart is jumping in her chest as the offer flies out of her mouth. Her heart rate was slower when she was launched into space, for crying out loud.
“I’d love to.” Vanessa pulls on her red leather jacket and bounds over to Brooke’s side, following her out the door.
“Damn.” Vanessa pulls ahead of Brooke and whistles once they get outside. “Look at those freaking stars. They’re so pretty tonight.”
“Yeah, they are,” Brooke agrees, but her eyes are fixed firmly in front of her.
°☆.。 —— ‘ i’ll be right here. don’t worry. ’ / @gcldbound / SRC. —— °☆.。
°☆.。 ❛ no. please , no, no no , not again — ❜ hushed words. RUSHED words. they were out in the open air the very SECOND the cold metal bars had crashed down around the two adventurers. suddenly twilight’s blood ran COLD , &. magic sparked at the tip of her spiraled horn ; once , twice , &. thrice again , unable to produce more than a few wayward sparkles before spluttering out as soon as the spires had lit. USELESS. just like BEFORE , trapped below the deck of a zeppelin , or within a cold dank CAVE with the shattered remains of the tree of harmony at her hooves. °☆.。
°☆.。 for the first time since they had met , the elder duck could see the remains of a mare HARROWED by the past. svelte ruler , so young yet so POISED , reduced to little more than a young , frightened mare who had faced one too many THREATS in a single lifetime &. was left TREMBLING in the wake of the shadows they had left behind. °☆.。
°☆.。 ears pressed flat against twilight’s skull. wings were tucked so tightly against her back they ACHED with the strain. breath fled from her in short gasps that were soon SWALLOWED down into the depths of her chest where OLD FEARS lay in wait. then ... a GENTLE TOUCH. perhaps a bit hesitant when met with such a violent FLINCH. but when violet eyes darted towards the SOURCE - (the duck who was still here. who was with her in the present. who was REAL) - RELIEF sparked within them despite the clouds , despite the raging storm. °☆.。
°☆.。 —— ‘ i’ll be right here. don’t worry. ’
°☆.。 thick swallow. shaky nod. shaking legs &. jittery cloven hooves brought twilight closer to scrooge’s presence , searching for SOLACE. for something SAFE in the literal confines of her worst nightmares. ❛ r-right. right. ❜ TIMID voice , small &. frail. leonine tail lashed back &. forth behind her. violet eyes darted back to the bars of their cage. ❛ please , please get me out of here. ❜ °☆.。
Fandom: Mystic Messenger
Pairing: Saeran x MC - Angst Week Day 1: Memories
Date Written: 8/6/18
Thoughts: For @mysmeangstweek Day 1. I’m replaying Ray Route and my thoughts are wandering again. Thank you to @thatrandomlittlegirl, @saijeou, @eliza-roselie for beta reading! I’m not sorry for this btw.
Spoilers for Ray Route. TW for abuse mention and implied PTSD. Please read with caution.
He awoke to another scream in the middle of the night.
It was sharp, piercing. A shrill cry that cut through the once peaceful silence and startled him back into the conscious world. It was loud, echoing with so much anguish that he was almost convinced that he had screamed involuntarily due to the traumatic nightmares that constantly plagued his every move.
Almost.
But as his hands clumsily fumbled around for the light switch, panic coursing through his veins, he came to the realization that, no, this scream wasn't coming from him but rather someone else.
Someone whom he'd never want to hear such distress from.
The bedside lamp was flipped on, the faint light illuminating the darkness as Saeran looked over to MC. She was wide awake, eyes red and brimming with tears as she trembled terribly from her side of the bed. Her hands were clenched tightly over her ears as she shook her head rapidly from side to side, trying to block out the phantoms that still seemed to haunt her long after sleep had eluded her.
“MC? Angel, are you alright? What’s wrong—”
Before he could get in any words, she launched herself off of the bed and onto the floor, curling into a ball on the floor as she continued to shiver uncontrollably. He immediately followed after her, tripping over himself as he fell beside her. He could only observe her, watching her with worry and hesitation as he tried to decide whether it would be a smart move to try and comfort her.
She only continued to tremble, her soft words breaking his heart slowly as he strained to hear them in the deft silence.
“I’ll be okay,” she whimpered under her breath, her hands pulling at her hair, almost trying to rip it away. “I’ll be okay; it’ll come to pass. I’ll be okay…” Her eyes were unfocused, blank, darting back and forth wildly at her surroundings.
His hand instinctively reached out again to try and hold her, to comfort her, to reassure her in any way that he possibly could.
But her next words pierced his heart far worse than any blade ever could.
“NO!” She shrieked as soon as her eyes met his. She flinched away from his touch and tugged at her messy locks in attempt to block out the ghostly voices ringing in her ears. “PLEASE STAY AWAY! DON’T TOUCH ME! I’ll be good, I promise! Just please…don’t make me drink the elixir…”
His face crumpled, hand dropping to his side as he could only stare at her. He felt his heart break into crystalline shards as her words replayed over in his mind, stuck on repeat, a realization finally dawning on him.
She had always been strong for him. Even back then…even back when he was degrading and harassing her under the effects of the elixir back at Mint Eye, she always held her ground. Always approached him with a calm mind and kind words, guiding him slowly back to himself, back to the sweet boy that he once was.
But never once did he stop to perhaps think that those days affected her a lot more than he would have thought.
She had always hid her fear behind a well-placed mask that he never caught a glimpse of the way she shook after waking from the same recurring nightmare that currently plagued her mind. The way that she would silently sob herself to sleep with only thoughts of foreboding as her companions. The way that she would whisper words of comfort to herself, trying to reassure herself that he would never return to his cruel self ever again.
Reassuring herself of a future so unsure that it was almost delusional of her to even believe in something so hopeful.
Even now, he could still see the terror reflecting in her glassy gaze as she stared emptily out at him, looking not at him but past him as if she was seeing the shadow of his past self come to torment her once more.
Another coughing fit overtook her and her hand immediately went to the collar of her shirt, gripping the fabric as if her life depended on it. He immediately gathered her into his arms, watching as she turned her face into his chest and cried against him. His fingers laced themselves through hers, pulling them away from her neck and letting her squeeze, anything to stop her from hurting herself in her delirium.
She sobbed uncontrollably in his arms, shaking in his embrace as she clutched onto him for dear life. Like he was her lifeline—which he might as well have been while she was caught in such a high panicked state of mind.
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”
“Shhhh, my angel, there is nothing to be sorry about.” He stroked her hair, whispering words of comfort softly into her ears, “I promised you once before that you would never see that cruel side of me ever again, and I will keep renewing this promise to you as much as you need. So please, let your tears out and don’t worry. I will be here for you as you were for me. Forever and always.”
They stayed like this for ages, him rubbing up and down her arms and her trembling as she continued to let out her anguish.
By the time her tears had finally dried, the morning sun was already peeking through the curtains, calling forth the dawn of a new day.
She had exhausted herself by this point, head resting against his chest and hand tightly intertwined in his. A few times he felt her twitch, her fingers clenching and unclenching—restlessly, desperately. Her hair fell over her face, covering the tear tracks that marred her cheeks alongside the deep, dark circles that sunk in her eyes—a sickly appearance that Saeran wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or not.
But those screams from the night before were real. Her desperate pleas had been real.
Those frightened tears had been real.
He felt that he had no right to do this, to even have touched her and comforted her as he did, but he couldn’t just let her sleep against the floor like this. Her body was already freezing and he would rather die than let her fall sick.
Not that he wasn’t already dead inside from last night but that was beside the point.
So he lifted her gently into his arms, shifting her into a more comfortable position before carrying her back onto their shared bed. He laid her gently onto the blankets, tucking them around her and pulling them up to her chin before brushing the stray locks from her face.
He prayed that sweet dreams would find her this time around. That she would be protected from the nightmares that had threatened to break her apart, as they often did with him. But as he stared at her furrowed brow, her pained expression, he realized that his prayers were left unanswered.
He continued to watch over her intently, gently stroking her hair as she slept.
He wanted nothing more than to give her the happiness that she deserved.
But he knew.
He knew that it was only a fleeting dream…for how could he possibly give her any respite when it was he who was the cause of her trauma?
Have Yourself a Super Merry Christmas 1/3 Christmas Past: Before those hands pulled me from the earth (Branjie)--athena2
A/N: I love my Powerless babies so much, and I also love Christmas, so I just had to write this! (You probably need to read Powerless and Overpowered if you’re new to this series). Thank you so much to Writ for not only beta-ing, but also encouraging me to keep doing this when I almost gave it up and brainstorming ideas with me. I appreciate you endlessly. Please leave some feedback if you’d like, each comment really does encourage me!!
Chapter title from Like Real People Do by Hozier.
—
It’s Christmas morning, and Brooke Lynn Hytes is six years old.
She stares at the ceiling, one small hand holding a stuffed monkey and the other running along her purple fleece blanket. Above her head, anchored by painted ballet slippers, big pink letters on the wall spell out her name, as if she would ever forget something that important.
Her feet kick around in excitement. She gave up on sleeping an hour ago, and she’s not sure how much longer she can possibly wait before going to see her tree sparkling, presents with bright paper and bows stashed underneath.
Her clock reads 5:43. She usually woke up at 7:30 for school, but she doesn’t know how much longer that will take. They haven’t learned that kind of math in school yet and 7:30 might as well be hundreds of years away. She can’t wait anymore. She pulls on her bunny slippers and bolts to her parents’ room, launching into their bed like a rocket.
There’s more than a few groans and exasperated glances at the clock before she tugs them both into the living room with her.
The presents are piled in red and green paper, with sparkling bows that will take her forever to untie. There’s a large box to the side, and Brooke decides to save that one for last in case it’s the new big-girl bike she asked for. She shreds paper on clothes and shoes and toys and a pink music box with a small blonde ballerina inside, just like her, shouting while her parents smile from the couch. She holds her breath when she gets to the last box, opening it to reveal a light purple bike with streamers on the handlebars and she shrieks in excitement. She climbs on it and her father says she can ride it when the snow melts, and Brooke smiles all day long, even in the itchy dress she has to wear for dinner at her grandmother’s.
She doesn’t know what’s coming. She doesn’t know that 14 years from now her parents won’t be there. She doesn’t know that 12 years after that, she’ll be pulled from the wreckage of a plane by evil people whose needles will give her powers and take this memory away from her. She doesn’t know that a year after that crash, in the high heat of summer, she’ll fall in love with a fierce, warm-hearted woman who will thaw the ice she built up around her heart, who will help her out of the darkness and give her new memories.
But she doesn’t know this. It’s Christmas morning, and Brooke Lynn Hytes is six years old. And she is happy.
Brooke sits up in bed and has her fingers clenched around her pen before she can even fully see. Her pen flies over the notebook, writing down every detail of the memory as it swirls in her brain: her mother’s laugh, her father’s promise to teach her, the silky smoothness of the streamers flowing from the handlebars, the gentle, melodic turns of the ballerina in the music box. She can still feel the cool weight of it in her lap. She’s seen flashes of her mother before, but this is the first time she’s ever seen her father and she wants to remember his dark blond hair and brown eyes. She wishes she could hold the memory in her hands, lock it up in a box and carry her treasure of memories around with her so she never loses them. Even though there’s no lab to take them from her anymore, time is just as much a thief, and she can’t lose this one. She can’t.
“Brooke?”
She must have woken Vanessa. It barely registers in her mind, thoughts still floating somewhere in time.
“Are you okay? You’re crying.”
She is? Her cheeks are wet, she notices suddenly. When had she started?
“Was it a bad dream?”
She puts down her pen, positive she’s gotten it all–the tear of wrapping paper, the pile of it brushing against her legs. The click of the camera shutter as her mother took pictures. The way it felt like the morning would never end, like every day after would be Christmas too.
“It-it was a good dream.” she answers finally, turning to see Vanessa’s worried eyes. Those eyes have looked at her countless times in the night, though getting fewer as the nightmares decrease. Those eyes ground Brooke when she wakes up and can’t understand where she is, mind still wholly convinced she’s in the lab, sitting on the exam table with a cold stethoscope pressed against her chest and a light shining too bright into her eyes, or pulsing with energy as her fist smashes into someone’s jaw, fulfilling her promise to the General that she wouldn’t fail because then she would be bad. Those eyes remind her that she’s not there, she’s home. Those eyes are her home.
“A good dream? Did you see one of your memories?” Vanessa’s voice brims with concealed excitement. She knows how much it means to Brooke when she regains a piece of her past, and she gets just as thrilled as Brooke does.
“Yeah. Christmas morning when I was a kid. I saw…I saw both my parents this time.” She’s aware of the tears now, falling thickly down her cheeks. Vanessa wipes them away, her fingertips replaced with lips as she kisses Brooke’s cheek softly.
“I’m happy you got to see it,” she breathes against Brooke’s face.
“Me too.” And she is. She just wishes it was never taken away in the first place, that she could have had this moment to relive over the years. But she knows from hours with Nina that she can’t ruminate on it. All she can do is take things day by day, memory by memory.
Vanessa’s stomach growls like thunder. “Oops. Way to spoil the moment, huh?”
Brooke smiles. “The half-dozen cookies you ate yesterday weren’t enough?”
“You know me,” Vanessa offers by way of apology.
“I sure do,” Brooke replies, going in for another kiss.
—
Patrol is miserable in the cold, but things have been quiet lately, almost like the criminals of the world are giving them a holiday break. Despite the chill, it is kind of pretty to be perched on the roof with red and green lights glowing below, shimmery wreaths and bows visible even from up high.The city is a large snow globe spread beneath her, filled with people she doesn’t know, all going about their lives, some struggling, some thriving, but all living; and maybe it’s her sessions with Nina or the Christmas cheer, but for once, Vanjie isn’t separated from the world below but is part of it, on the inside of the glass rather than the outside, and she’s never been happier to.
“Anybody need ice?” Frost asks, and Scarlet groans in response.
Vanjie refuses. She has several new bruises on her back, but when you’ve been doing this for years like she has, you just stop noticing after a while. Just another bruise to add to the collection, another ounce of pain when her shoulders have already borne tons.
There’s a cold sensation on her back, a ball of ice pressed against it as Frost stands at her side. She nods knowingly, but doesn’t say anything, and Vanjie is grateful. It’s still strange for her to be taken care of the way Frost–Brooke–takes care of her. But a good strange. One she can’t imagine living without, even if is still hard for her to accept that care, accept that her shoulders don’t have to carry it all alone anymore.
“Alarm went off at a toy store on 32nd,” Silk informs everyone by ear comm.
“I told you my vision would be tonight!” Yvie brags. “You owe me five bucks, Vanj.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Vanjie stands up and looks around at them, the people that make up her loud, dysfunctional, cutthroat board game-playing family, a burst of affection bubbling up in her.
“Let’s go catch a criminal.”
—-
She and Brooke drive to a mall upstate to do some shopping. They haven’t been to a mall in a while, since their first attempt didn’t go very well. Being somewhere so big, with blinding white tile, had reminded Brooke of the lab, but she said all the people and the noise–which weren’t allowed at the lab–made her think something bad would happen. She had insisted they stay, but her scrunched-up shoulders and the way she jumped when there was a loud noise made Vanessa’s heart hurt and they left after a few stores.
But Brooke is confident today, growing to feel safe in unfamiliar locations. Nina says it’s good for Brooke to explore new places, and they go to new coffee shops and restaurants regularly, Vanessa ensuring Brooke is safe and calm.
They pass a pretzel stand by the entrance and Brooke gasps.
“Ness, did you see those pretzels? They’re huge! Can I get–” she takes a quick breath, “–I’m gonna go get one,” she says.
Vanessa’s heart swells with pride. With Nina’s help, Brooke’s gotten better at being more assertive, at saying things she wants to do instead of asking permission or deferring to someone else. Not to mention that standing in line and ordering for herself are also big accomplishments, and Vanessa can’t help but marvel at how far she’s come.
“Okay, baby.”
She stands off to the side, knowing not to go too far, and Brooke returns with her hands full of pretzels bigger than her head and a smile like the sun on her face.
“One is plain, and one has garlic and Parmesan, and one has pepperoni, and one has cinnamon sugar! I couldn’t pick so I got them all.” she blushes.
There are moments when Vanessa’s love for Brooke hits her so hard it knocks the breath right out of her, and Brooke chewing on a pretzel and holding out one for her to try is one of them.
—-
Once Brooke adjusts to all the noise and people around, the mall is… nice, actually. It’s not as scary as it was last time, her medication easing some of the fear she used to have. Vanessa shares pretzels with her and says they can have lunch at a diner in the mall if they want, and Brooke can’t stop looking at Vanessa and smiling, Vanessa smiling back at her.
They pick out ugly Christmas sweaters to wear on Christmas Eve and get presents for everyone, and Brooke is calm.
They’re walking past a store with watches and jewelry when she sees it in the window.
A light pink music box, with the cover open to reveal a blonde ballerina twirling gracefully. She stops in her tracks, eyes glued to the box, the movement of the ballerina hypnotic, spinning thoughts into her head.
After the bike (which, though she doesn’t remember, she learned to ride with only one scrape on her leg), the music box had been her favorite present. Has she watched it like this before? The idea pops into her mind that she would watch it spin when she was lost in thought or worried about school, that the repetitive motions calmed her.
A few seconds later the dull early signs of a headache poke out behind her eyes, and she blinks furiously.
White floors and white walls. The la–no, she’s not there. She’s never going back there again. It’s the mall.
Warmth on her hand.
Vanessa.
She looks to her side and breathes, Vanessa silently asking if she’s okay.
“I’m good,” Brooke replies. “I-this was in my dream the other night. I’m okay.”
Vanessa nods. “What do you say about some lunch?”
—-
“This whole page is just milkshakes?” Brooke brandishes the menu at Vanessa in wonder.
“Yep.” Vanessa grins. “You wanna get one to share? You can pick if you want.”
She’s gotten better at it, (she still laughs when she thinks of the time she couldn’t pick what she wanted from a Chinese restaurant and Vanessa ordered so much food they ate leftovers for a week) but making decisions still cuts at her stomach. There simply weren’t any decisions to make at the lab. She did what they told her, and that was that. It’s dizzying to have so many options now, to see so many things she didn’t know she was allowed to want, though sometimes it gives her an indescribable fear that she’s choosing the wrong thing.
Remember to breathe when you’re deciding something, Nina’s voice reminds her.
Air floods her lungs. She looks up at Vanessa, who is undoubtedly the best choice she’s ever made. “Um. There’s one with peanut butter and chocolate?”
They both get a grilled cheese and French fries, and Vanessa suggests she dip the fries in the milkshake and it’s so good they have to get another order of fries.
Brooke is wiping the whipped cream off her nose, unsure of how it even got there, when she notices Vanessa smiling at her.
“What is it?”
“I just really love you.” Vanessa answers.
—-
They spend the days leading up to Christmas making cookies until the kitchen looks like a train swept through it and Vanessa has to take two showers in one day after finding sprinkles down her shirt.
They move around each other like a dance, and the hours tick by in perfect happiness as they cross cookies off their list. Sometimes they didn’t even have to talk, almost like they could read each other’s thoughts, sense their needs before they did. Vanessa hands Brooke chocolate chips before she could ask for them; Brooke gives Vanessa the biggest cookie to taste-test. Laughing in that kitchen with Brooke just might be the best part of Christmas.
It could be Brooke’s dream still on her mind, or the holiday spirit hitting her now that tomorrow is Christmas Eve–their second one together, Vanessa thinks in wonder–but Vanessa pulls out her old photos that night, after Brooke is asleep, curled up under her weighted blanket and so adorable Vanessa has to smile.
She rifles through years’ worth of pictures, cringing at her rat’s nest of hair and those God-awful middle school years when taking her picture should have been illegal, blinking away tears at pictures of her parents and little brother. Miguel. She doesn’t talk about him, doesn’t even think about him if she can help it, the pain just too much. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend she never had a brother. Even now, as she thinks of how he always passed her his pizza crusts at dinner, or the hours they spent pretending to be Batman and Robin, the wound stings like the fire was just yesterday. She gets to the picture when she was six and he was four, the two of them in front of the tree, trying to hold their new puppy still for the camera. That was the year they got Taco. She closes her eyes and lets it consume her…
It’s Christmas morning, and Vanessa Mateo is six years old.
Her eyes snap open and she rolls over. She doesn’t know what time it is, but if she’s awake, it’s morning, and that’s good enough for her. She sticks her head over the edge of the bunk bed, her brother sleeping below. She hurls her stuffed tiger at his face.
“Wake up, dummy, it’s Christmas!”
She slides down the ladder of her bed without using the rungs, pretending she’s Batman sliding into the Batcave.
“Do you think Santa brought our puppy?” she asks him as his feet pad behind hers on the way to their parents’ room.
“Maybe.”
Their father whines for a few minutes after they both pounce, their mother shushing him and following closely behind as they race to the living room. She and Miguel each try to out-do each other on their shouting, and her mother jokes that she’ll need earplugs next Christmas as they destroy wrapping paper on toys and games and clothes and shoes, crumbling it into balls and whipping it at each other when they’re done. They’re planning the next saga to create with Miguel’s new action figures when her mother announces that there’s one more gift for them to share, and their father comes in with a big white box with holes punched in the top.
They ease off the lid and Vanessa pulls the chocolate lab puppy out of the box and rests him on the floor, her and Miguel fighting over who gets to name it, hands petting its silky fur. Their mother is saying how they’ll have to clean up after it and train it and Vanessa doesn’t even mind as she kisses its soft head, her and Miguel still smiling in the matching outfits they had to wear for Christmas Day.
She doesn’t know what’s coming. She doesn’t know that 20 years from now, everyone in this room will be gone. She doesn’t know that the same fire that takes them from her will leave her lying alone in the ash, body burning with flames that crackle both inside and out. She doesn’t know that less than two years after the fire takes everything, she will fall in love with a sweet, soft-hearted woman who will freeze the flames she built up around her heart, who will help her out of the darkness and give her a new family.
But she doesn’t know this. It’s Christmas morning, and Vanessa Mateo is six years old. And she is happy.
Vanessa puts the pictures away and wipes furiously at her eyes. She shouldn’t have done this, it was just asking for the pain. But maybe it’s a good thing too, to let it all out and not keep things so buried. That’s something Nina would say, she muses with a smile. She slips down beside Brooke, who sleeps so much better now with therapy and meds helping her out. Brooke has been her anchor through the busy times at the salon and patrolling injuries and memories of her family that pop up uninvited in her mind on nights when she swears the fire is still singeing her skin and turning her breaths to ash, nights when Brooke’s cool skin drives the fire away and keeps her safe. She nestles against Brooke’s chest. Brooke suddenly stirs at the movement and lets out a sleepy mumble, pulling Vanessa closer like she senses her distress.
She knows she should talk about it, knows she is safe enough to, but no matter how good she’s gotten at letting herself be vulnerable and accept help, it’s just too raw to take it out of her head and put it into words. She can’t do it. Not tonight, at least.
Vanessa is sure Brooke knows this, so the blonde just grips her tighter, effectively holding her together.
When they wake up, it’s Christmas Eve.
It’s Christmas Eve, and Brooke and Vanessa are happy.
