Liam has gained (perspective) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-07-04 23:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | !tales, *narrative, ashleigh donovan |
Narrative: Ashleigh Donovan
Who: Ashleigh Donovan
What: A time jump
Where: Tales Door
When: Recently!
Warnings/Rating: Nothing of note
When she walked through the door that led to the world that Jack lived in, Ashleigh had every intention of surprising him. She had a backpack slung over her shoulder filled with goodies from home, sparkling water, bread, cheese, some pastrami from a deli down the street from where she had been staying. It was intended as a picnic, a surprise, a little meeting with a man she was, against her best intentions, fond of. He was a good friend and he respected her limits as far as what she wanted to talk about, and she appreciated that. He didn't treat her like most everyone else did, like a traitor, like some monster who had gone out of her way to harm everyone around her. No, to Jack, she was just a young woman, a young pregnant woman, and that was the best she could be right then.
She knew vaguely where his cabin was, had walked the area around the building several times, knew the paths in and out, but for some reason, she couldn't find it this time. And it wasn't just Jack's cabin that was missing, but everything that was even vaguely familiar about this place. When she tried to find the door back to the hotel, to collect herself and try again, Ashleigh found that even that was no where to be found. Part of her wanted to panic, wanted to express her frustration at this situation, but a larger part of her knew that was one of the worst things she could do right then. She had to keep herself together, not just for her own well-being but also that of the baby.
Minutes turned into hours, to days, to weeks, and when it seemed that the door back home was lost to her for the time being, Ash decided it was best to try and figure out how to live here as best she could. A bridge from the Homelands took her to Fabletown, and it was as modern as any city she had visited in the past. There were doctors here, rooms to rent, even jobs to be had, and Ashleigh found each of them in turn. The room was small, but it had a bathroom attached, and the privacy was more than she could ask for. In turn, she helped watch the store below, helping out at all hours of the day in exchange for her rent and a little something on top of that to live on.
It was in late October that the baby came. She was working at time, and one of the customers that had been in the shop right then was kind enough to see her to the hospital. A screaming baby boy came into the world on Halloween night, two days after she had been first admitted, and after a considerable amount of tears at everything that had happened, he was placed in Ashleigh's arms for the first time. He was lighter than her with a mop of dark hair, and she thought he was the most perfect thing she had ever seen. All the doubts she had had about being a mother flew out the window, and less than three days later, Ashleigh went home with her son, Matthew Charles Donovan.
A crib found a home in her room above the shop, and the owners were nice enough to let her mind things while keeping her son with them. And thus, Ashleigh began her life as a single mother. It wasn't as bad as she thought it was, and the customers that came through were more than happy to offer her advice as Matthew got bigger and bigger. Several months later, she moved out to a little house just outside of town of her own, and though she continued to help out at the shop, life became a little more comfortable having a place that was hers instead of just a room. She made friends, met other mothers that lived there in Fabletown, and just like it had been back home in Edinburgh, Ash was never alone.
She liked it that way, though. There was always someone around, people to talk to, people to celebrate life's little successes with. There were birthday parties and first words, skinned knees and play dates, and three years after the door had closed behind her, Ashleigh couldn't imagine life being any different. Sure, she missed her family, but she had friends here, people that she had grown close to and opened up to, and most of all, she had her son. He was her everything, her best friend, the person she loved the most, and there were days when she couldn't imagine a life without him. His successes were her own, and life had never been better.
They were on a walk in the woods, hunting for bugs, when the door opened for her again. It was tucked into the wall of an old hunting cabin they had encountered, and the hotel was clear through that opening. Part of her wanted to ignore it, to grab Matthew's hand and turn right back around in the direction they had come from. Her stomach had clenched at the sight, at what it meant, and for the first time in several years, Ashleigh felt afraid.
It was Matthew who brought her back though with the tug he gave to her hand and his childish voice asking her what was wrong. She wouldn't lie to him, though, and tell him nothing, so she just gave his hand a tight squeeze and started the way back to town. Just a place I used to know, she explained to him, and that was that for another three days.
But for those three days, the sight of the door and the familiar hotel she could see through it chewed at her. She had thought all of that behind her. No, this wasn't home, it wasn't Las Vegas or Edinburgh, but she had made this out to be a new home, and she was happy. Would going back spoil it all? Take it all away from her? It would be easy to ignore it, but she knew she had to do something. But she wasn't going through that door. No, there were other ways to check.
The journal was pulled out, the old phone that she had kept charged but put away, because she had checked it for weeks after the door had first disappeared to find absolutely nothing on it. But when she turned it on now and pulled up the journal, there it all was, just like nothing had ever changed. Her hands were shaking as she scrolled through the recent entries, familiar names coming back to her, though it seemed so long ago.
After a few minutes, she put it away, going to Matthew's room where he was napping. Ash sat down on the edge of his bed and ran her fingers through his soft, dark hair, trying to find the calm and happiness that had been hers before all of this. It was going to be okay, even if it was all back. It had to be. Right?