day 8 On the eighth day of christmas, my true love sent to me Eight lonely people
Abbey Girls Jack/Jen, Jen/Kenneth PG
“Congratulations,” said Jack dully.
Jen frowned a little as she looked at her ‘husband’.
“Jacky-boy, aren’t you happy for me?”
“Thrilled.” Jack’s tone was still flat, but she pulled herself together. “No, Jen, I’m delighted for you. Ken sounds like a brick.”
Jen nodded, smiling a little as she recalled all the separate occasions on which Kenneth Marchwood had been called upon to be ‘a brick’.
“And you’ll dance at my wedding?”
Jack swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Of course I’ll dance.” She bit back her tears and gave a smile to the girl who had called herself her ‘wife’ for so many years. Now, and forever more, Jen would be someone else’s wife – and in more than name alone. She spoke softly. “I’ll always dance for you, Jenny-wren.”
Pride and Prejudice Mary Bennet PG 349 words
No one ever knew how much Mary Bennet hated being ‘the plain sister’. Bad enough that Jane was so beautiful that gentlemen had been known to stop in the street and stare with admiration; that Lizzy’s vivacious style would always win her friends. It was when first Kitty and then Lydia ‘came out’ and Mary found that they too – had something she had not. She found she could not be consoled by her elder sisters’ disdain for their younger siblings’ approach towards gentlemen. The point was, it worked. Filled with a spirit of aspiration, Mary tried to copy them once. Just once.
“Who on earth is that fright in the glasses?” she heard one young soldier say to an acquaintance; and the world crumbled around her.
She decided to be educated. She needed some reason for people to notice her. She knew she didn’t play brilliantly, but at least she was accurate. And yes, it was nice to buy a bit of praise for playing dance tunes, but no one really noticed whether she played them correctly or not, so long as they could dance. She pretended she had no wish to dance – what else could she do, when no one would be her partner anyway? Sometimes she played things badly just so that she would get some attention. It got so that she didn’t care whether it was good or bad.
Then there was the worst time. When their cousin came to stay. Mr Collins. Mary had hopes of Mr Collins. He seemed of a serious turn of mind, so surely he wouldn’t be interested in her younger sisters? She watched Elizabeth snub him again and again, and dared to hope. Lizzy turned him down, and Mary waited for him to come to her; to ask her The Question. She would not turn him down.
Instead, he – like all the men before him – turned elsewhere. Charlotte Lucas. When their engagement was announced, Mary cried herself to sleep for a week.
She never vowed not to marry. She didn’t need to. She knew then that she’d never be asked.
Malory Towers Connie/Ruth PG13/R for twincest (non-explicit) Set in Upper Fourth at Malory Towers (spoilers) 179 words
It was Wrong. Ruth knew it was wrong and she hated it. Hated herself for not being strong enough to say no. Hated Connie because Connie knew – she must know – that Ruth didn’t want to and yet they still did.
Ruth hadn’t been able to tell Darrell. Hadn’t told her that the biggest thing – the one horrible, big, major thing – that had made her so angry with Connie was not that Connie had asked her to fail her exam deliberately; it was not the shame that would come from failure. It was knowing that as long, as long as they were in the same year they’d be sharing the same dormitory, and as long as they shared the same dormitory, Connie would…
The other girls thought that Connie held Ruth, to comfort her in the night. That it was part of being twins. Ruth didn’t want a twin. Sometimes she wished Connie had never been born. Often, she wished she herself had never been born. And always, always, she was alone – kept alone by the secret she didn’t want.
For sangerin, who knows the precise quotation that sparked this fic. Chalet School Nell Wilson G 132 words
“I love my job.”
How many times had Nell Wilson said those words? Certainly it was true that she got a fulfilment from teaching that she could not imagine from any other work. But sometimes – as when her closest friend Con Stewart appeared one night, dimpling and blushing as she showed off a glimmering ring on the fourth finger of her left hand – sometimes it was difficult not to feel a little pang; not to, perhaps, wonder what it might be like to have a special someone in her life. Especially as the invitations flooded in to wedding after wedding; when girls she remembered fondly as difficult teenagers became wives, then mothers – experiences Nell would never share.
Yes, she loved her job, but sometimes (honestly) wasn’t it just a little bit… lonely?
Harry Potter Severus PG 29 words
He poured the champagne into a tall, thin glass; cut a slice of christmas cake and slid it onto a plate.
“Happy Christmas, Severus,” he muttered sardonically to himself.
Harry Potter Remus/Sirius PG 45 words
“Sirius, will you… would you possibly… go out with me?”
“Yes, of course, idiot!”
Remus sighed as he caught sight of his own, plain, reflection in the mirror. Who was he trying to kid? Sirius would never say any such thing. Remus would never ask.
GIFT FOR rushikayu13 Harry Potter Luna/Ginny PG 99 words
I see her when she sleeps; she is strange to me, separate. I see her when she wake; her eyes search out my own. I see her when she smiles; the whole world brightens at the sight. I see her when she cries; her tears are raindrops from heaven.
Luna sucked the end of her quill, her eyes resting on the slight form of her love. Ginny caught the gaze, and smiled, puzzled by the other girl’s attention. Luna smiled in return, but drew a thick black line through the poem. Love was a dangerous dream for a loner.
Harry Potter Luna/Ginny PG 111 words
“But aren’t you ever lonely?” Ginny asked her once.
Luna looked away into the distance, as if she hadn’t heard the question. But she had. It was just – what could she possibly say? Yes, of course she was lonely. Ginny – Ginny, with her large family, her masses of friends, her confidence in herself and her (comparatively) usual way of looking at life – Ginny couldn’t possibly understand how awfully, painfully, heart-wrenchingly lonely Luna could be. Besides, it wasn’t pity that she wanted from Ginny. Luna had never wanted to be pitied.
“It’s a good night for looking for humming fish,” she said at last.