Penny Ross (deployed) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-12-01 23:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | !marvel comics, *narrative, penny ross |
Narrative: Penny Ross
Who: Penny Ross
What: More tales from the fire escape?
When: About nowish.
Where: Her apartment in Marvel/New York
Warnings: LOL no
Penny had a habit of writing home, she'd been doing it religiously since she left home for basic training and hadn't stopped except for in emergencies. And even then she still wrote, even if she couldn't get all the letters sent. Of course here there was absolutely no one to write to, and she was pretty sure letters wouldn't get to Graham in the other door without some serious work on her part. And just the same she supposed she could just reach him on the journals if she had something pressing to tell him.
She had stayed with Graham overnight initially, and had gone back to Gotham City on the holiday, cooked a turkey - neither of them got Salmonella or any other food-born illness so she considered it a success. She had never cooked a turkey before in her life, but between the two of them and the Internet they lived to fight another day. She had gone back home after dinner, not wanting to intrude on his time in any way, she had sort of showed up unannounced - something she would try real hard not to do again. It wasn't polite, and even if they were kin she knew she had to work up to just showing up, but she had appreciate him letting her stay, and the encouragement on the turkey. That had been mighty nice of him.
Black Friday she had worked a 16 hour shift at the hospital, Saturday was the same, Sunday was 8 hours at the hospital, and a 6 hour stint at Planned Parenthood, and Monday she had slept - but was still on call. In those 48 work hours she had accomplished quite a lot. It was still strange, people at the hospital knowing exactly who she was. Like she'd always been there, like she belonged there. It was uncomfortable, but once she had less downtime and more work time, she would stop thinking about it so much. She was sure of it.
It was late, after midnight, Monday night becoming Tuesday morning. She was on her fire escape, in the cold, but bundled well. Once again, the city beeped and revved on the streets below. The only light was from the lamp she had in the window so she could see the pad of paper in front of her, and the red ember at the end of her hand rolled cigarette. She was wearing jeans, socks, sneakers. Under her pull over sweatshirt was a warm clinging thermal, under her hood her ears were covered by a red knit cap, and her hands had gloves on them. She wasn't miserable, it was only 40 degrees or so, but it certainly wasn't unbearable - and she was bundled.
Her knees were bent, her back against the railing, as smoke hovered in the still cool air around her. Resting on her knees was a yellow legal pad, her letter writing paper of choice, and her pen was pressed to the top line, on the furthest left. She didn't know who she was supposed to write to, what she'd say, but she knew if she broke the habit now, whenever things were put back right and she was in a more familiar place, with more than one familiar face that was away behind a door to another Universe, she would have a hard time picking it back up again. Ehe didn't know who to write to. So she just did what she did every time in this situation. Dear Mama.
She didn't go into specific details, she wasn't trying to get her feelings out about Marvel, and DC, and strange doors. That was for her to work out and write about later. No, she talked about her 48 hours on duty. The babies that she had assisted into the world, the work she'd done to help people. She talked about seeing Graham, she talked about hearing from Clementine. She even wrote optimistic little white lies about how she was going to do better at keeping in touch with the only kin she had in town. She made no mention of being worried about him, but it was still anchored in her gut. She talked about her new apartment. She talked about her new hospital, she talked about her new CO, and told her she got her hair trimmed the day before Thanksgiving, and she finally found someone who didn't cut off too much. She told a funny story about the turkey she'd tried to cook. Even asked her to send her the recipe she had used all those years for family holidays.
It felt good, and relaxing as the pen glided smoothly across the paper in stroke after stroke of cursive. Everyone said that doctors had terrible handwriting, everyone said army docs were the worst offenders. Not Penny. Penny had maintained the perfectly slanted, well manicured, and dabbed with the right amount of flourish to make it unique, penmanship she'd practiced with her mother as a little girl. There weren't a lot of mistakes in her letter, in her words, every now and then the pen pressed to the paper a bit too long and there were some dark dots on the lines while she'd figured out what to write next.
At the end, even though it wasn't going anywhere, she signed it as she always did, "Love, Penny." Pretty standard, but still familiar. She even went so far as to rip the two sheets of paper from the pad, fold them, put them in the envelope she had with her, address aid envelope, and put a stamp on it. It wasn't going anywhere, but as she finished up another cigarette - before she dropped it into the coke bottle next to her, she sealed the envelope and knew she would put it right in her "to be sent" box. which was different than her "send now" box which was full of bills and urgent things. The box already had a couple of letters in it. One to her ex husband, and one to her former CO. The cigarette out, she exhaled the last of the smoke into the air and climbed back in through her window. She set the pad and pen down on her coffee table, and the letter went into the box. She didn't know if she felt better, or if the familiarity just had her less rattled. She didn't have much time to thing on it, because against her hip, the beeper clipped to the waist of her pants started beeping loudly. She looked at it, and immediately dialed the number back. Time to go deliver another baby.