She's getting better about it. The strange grind of daily digging out new pieces of the life she's trying to put together, not just for herself but for them all, of the gray sky and the gray buildings and the gray people, the mundanity of fighting to find matching sets of chairs and not monsters - it helps ground her, helps make it all real. Yet... there are times, she'll blink - and just for a second - she'll expect to see green when she opens her eyes again. Sometimes... in that second as she steps outside - she's still afraid to look up at the sky. A part of her worries she'll always be that way even if the practical side of her knows better. In moments like those, she makes it a point to reach out and physically touch the nearby construction of her new world and she silently recites the names of her family. Not the memories anymore but the flesh and blood one and it reminds her that she's not alone. That this time it will be different.
She's taking inventory in the small side room they've set aside for supplies, day dreaming about what she'd like to have while she makes a list of what she knows she's lucky enough to already have, when she hears the front door open and the lack of shout afterward tells her who it is. It has her heart giving a little light bob in her chest, the way it always does when she's recognizing who it is that's just come home. Home. Their home. It has her up on her feet from where she'd been hunkered down and poking her head out the doorless entry, one hand wrapping around the door jam while the other still holds the sheaf of smudged paper. Wanting to welcome him home. It doesn't have to be anything special or elaborate, just... she wants to always welcome him home when he comes back. She wants him to get used to hearing it, even if it's just a word that goes in one ear and out the other on his way by. He's given her a home and she wants it to always belong to the both of them no matter what else happens.]
You're late. [It's the farthest thing from chiding, instead said fondly, a soft tease, something that's said with the same familiarity and acceptance as she'd once called him messed up and her smile when she says it is soft, the warm one that only he ever gets from her. It doesn't matter that he's late. It matters that he comes home. To them. To her. She hopes he knows that.
And then her eyes hit the only other burst of color in the room past his pale mountain sunshine hair, the one he's trying hard to so covertly abscond without credit for and that wine color goes wider. Seconds later, there's a wash of light through them that starts there and seeps out like sunrise all the way through her, across her face and through her shoulders.]
Flowers? [There's just the hint of a younger girl's voice in that quiet delight as she moves over to touch the petals reverently with ungloved fingertips before pressing her nose to one. It's simple and silly and sweet and because it is, her heart tips up happily inside her chest and suddenly the day isn't half so long and gray at all. And yet - they're still both new to this and so, turning those hopeful, happy eyes on the man covered in city dust, she still asks:]
runaway porn train?! that's the best kind!
She's getting better about it. The strange grind of daily digging out new pieces of the life she's trying to put together, not just for herself but for them all, of the gray sky and the gray buildings and the gray people, the mundanity of fighting to find matching sets of chairs and not monsters - it helps ground her, helps make it all real. Yet... there are times, she'll blink - and just for a second - she'll expect to see green when she opens her eyes again. Sometimes... in that second as she steps outside - she's still afraid to look up at the sky. A part of her worries she'll always be that way even if the practical side of her knows better. In moments like those, she makes it a point to reach out and physically touch the nearby construction of her new world and she silently recites the names of her family. Not the memories anymore but the flesh and blood one and it reminds her that she's not alone. That this time it will be different.
She's taking inventory in the small side room they've set aside for supplies, day dreaming about what she'd like to have while she makes a list of what she knows she's lucky enough to already have, when she hears the front door open and the lack of shout afterward tells her who it is. It has her heart giving a little light bob in her chest, the way it always does when she's recognizing who it is that's just come home. Home. Their home. It has her up on her feet from where she'd been hunkered down and poking her head out the doorless entry, one hand wrapping around the door jam while the other still holds the sheaf of smudged paper. Wanting to welcome him home. It doesn't have to be anything special or elaborate, just... she wants to always welcome him home when he comes back. She wants him to get used to hearing it, even if it's just a word that goes in one ear and out the other on his way by. He's given her a home and she wants it to always belong to the both of them no matter what else happens.]
You're late. [It's the farthest thing from chiding, instead said fondly, a soft tease, something that's said with the same familiarity and acceptance as she'd once called him messed up and her smile when she says it is soft, the warm one that only he ever gets from her. It doesn't matter that he's late. It matters that he comes home. To them. To her. She hopes he knows that.
And then her eyes hit the only other burst of color in the room past his pale mountain sunshine hair, the one he's trying hard to so covertly abscond without credit for and that wine color goes wider. Seconds later, there's a wash of light through them that starts there and seeps out like sunrise all the way through her, across her face and through her shoulders.]
Flowers? [There's just the hint of a younger girl's voice in that quiet delight as she moves over to touch the petals reverently with ungloved fingertips before pressing her nose to one. It's simple and silly and sweet and because it is, her heart tips up happily inside her chest and suddenly the day isn't half so long and gray at all. And yet - they're still both new to this and so, turning those hopeful, happy eyes on the man covered in city dust, she still asks:]
For me?