. (isconfetti) wrote in repose, @ 2019-12-05 22:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | *narrative, hannah smith |
[Narrative]
Who: Hannah
What: Narrative
Where: Carnem's carnival, Hannah's trailer
When: Nowish
Warnings/Rating: N for None
Home, but it wasn't. The trailer wasn't hers, and it wasn't new, but it was home, and she wasn't sure. She'd lived in the tiny space out at Hookerville for so long, and that hadn't been hers, and it hadn't been new, but it had been home. And before that. Before trailers and tin and cold winters, there had been Marcus. Marcus' house, which hadn't been hers, or home, or new. And she yearned for something that didn't change. For once, for once, she yearned for the ground not to shift beneath her feet, and so she closed her eyes and walked into the trailer, and she hoped. December. She would pretend, she decided. For December, and she opened her eyes and looked at the life that had belonged to people before her. It was crowded, chaos and tumult, and she loved it. She knew it wasn't really, really hers. She knew the carnival was probably going to be a problem, and she knew who was running it, and she knew why. She knew, but sometimes it was okay to just close her eyes and be, and this Christmas was going to be that type of time. It would be easy to blame it all on being sick. On Si's sickness reaching its cold and aching fingers for her. 'A Twin Thing,' Mom had always said, and Hannah had spent the day before being so bone-weary sick that she kind of wanted to die. Except not, because she remembered, and so she bundled up, moved her few things, and made resolutions to pretend. And she hoped. She hoped a lot. She hoped so much she thought that maybe there was no hope left in the world, and then she hoped more. She hoped for Si. She hoped for herself. She hoped for Jamie, and she hoped for Mars, and she hoped for David. And then she started all over again. Curled up in that trailer, the carnival coming to life outside in a heat that felt like a winter miracle to the midway workers, she hoped. A book on her lap, a grand romance playing out on pages that she turned while the heater in the trailer crackled, she listened. Caspar was still out there, but she thought maybe it was okay for now. She was too valuable to Carnem right now, and Carnem had invested a lot in the carnival; they wouldn't want to uproot yet, not until they'd studied everything they wanted to study, seen all they wanted to see. Where the AI park was violent and taboo, this place was meant to be full of wonder, and wonder didn't come with spilled blood or cries. It wasn't a bad place to be, to lick wounds, to find herself after the journey home that wasn't. She could still feel it, the house. The house, pulling and pulling, like some book she'd never finished and a story she didn't know the ending to. She'd feel better in a few days, because Si would feel better in a few days, and then she'd find a costume amid the clutter of the warm trailer. She'd laugh and smile and talk to people, and it would be better. Si was in rehab! That was good, and Jamie had someone who cared about him. Mars, Mars was still Mars, but there was time and there was love, and that had to be good, right? And David. David just needed time and talking, time and talking. There was time. There had to be time. They'd all lost so much time already, and she wanted to believe. Tiptoeing through pretend, but it was so easy to get lost in it, and she curled up smaller and huddled closer, book open and blanket wrapped around her small form. It would be okay. It would. |