Upstairs, outside the open window: Hannah/Open
Hannah wasn't nervous, and she wasn't worried. She remembered a life filled with galas and parties, and she remembered people coming to dress her, to do her hair, to make sure her makeup was perfect. And she remembered catering, the food brought to the house and warmed with little tealights. She remembered holding onto Marcus' arm, and she remembered how everything was planned down to the very last song and the very last toast. She remembered parties where there was so much on the line, and where smiling right made all the difference in what happened once the guests were gone. Tonight wasn't that, and this wasn't stressful, not when compared to those glittering nights of the past. Tonight was friends and twinkling lights, and it was warmth and laughter. Tonight was about Audrey and firsts, and Hannah's firsts were a long, long way back, when she wasn't Hannah at all.
Music played, and Hannah slipped upstairs. Climb, climb, and climb, the strands of fairy lights leading her to the upper landing and the window there, the one that looked out over the sloped awning of the house. She opened the window easily, and she climbed out in layers that weren't really suited to anything at all. She wore no mask, and she wasn't really a hero or heroine, but the dress reminded her a little bit of Cathy Earnshaw, and so she wore it without shoes and with her mom's old shawl. Hair loose and messy, she sat on the awning, knees to her chest and toes scrunched where they wiggled beneath a pair of Si's too-big socks, thick and scrunched down and maybe white once. There, from her vantage point high in her tower, she watched the procession of people who had come to see Audrey as she held court in a house that smelled of baking and firsts. Hannah just hugged her knees and hummed along to the music that spilled out and over, tappity tap went her toes, and the night chill just made her feel alive and living and real as her breath ghosted warm on the cold night's air.