OOM
A pillow, a blanket, a note from the bar. Sentenced ordered to nap on the couch while someone - things? - took care of the snow and wet she'd left in her rooms. At least she'd tried to do it herself and okay, maybe, just maybe she'd needed help and rest rather than to do it all herself.
Those last few minutes before head met pillow are blurred but Rachel faintly remembers blue-tipped fingers.
So she slept. For most of the evening, and then again, almost the full night. Woke early and returned her things to Bar, got another note for her trouble. Telling her it was all right to go upstairs now and, if she wouldn't mind, could she be a little more careful next time please?
She'd been inclined to ignore it but Rachel, drowsy and foggy and in yesterday-- two night's ago? - clothes, mumbled something that might have been an apology and trudged up the stairs.
It's not until she's standing on the threshold looking in, spotless living room and dry carpet, that it occurs to her who might have done the cleaning. If it wasn't all snap your fingers - or splinters - and poof! clean. All Poppins-style about it.
That it might have been the staff of waiters scurrying around her room cleaning up after her.
Rachel shudders, shakes her head sharply, and steps inside.
She stays inside for the day. It won't hurt anything and it's not like there's any obligations she's avoiding. A day without running or gymnastics won't hurt her either.
And vegging is good for the soul.
There's a TV, just like she'd guessed when talking to Cy. It's got shows and movies on it. She catches a few episodes of soap operas, stretched out on her couch and listening to unplanned babies and evil twins and secret love affairs for a while. Zones out, more like. A few names catch her attention but they're coincidence only and quickly ignored.
Talk shows. No news or weather, she notices, but then what would be the point?
Today there will be light explosions out the window inside the bar along with the heavy snow in the Enchanted Forest. Later, the explosions will increase in a neverending loop and some shapeshifters may paint the snow red with the blood of demon rabbits. Stay tuned!
Yeah, no.
The light brightens outside her closed balcony doors.
And slowly, starts to dim again.
A wall clock with hands and roman numerals tells her it's evening. Six o'clock. Dinnertime.
She hasn't eaten since last night and in considering this, face half mashed on the couch cushion, wonders for the first time if she even needs to anymore.
She doesn't feel hungry and it has nothing to do with emotions or nightmares.
Or the heart that doesn't pound in her throat.
Get up. Shower. Hot water. Watching pale skin turn pink beneath the spray. She can feel the hot, enough that she's fairly certain a burn would be painful if not fatal.
Notes these things with detached curiosity. These are the facts of not'life.
"Dead Ed should have been offered as an elective," Rachel mutters beneath the pounding of the water.
Darkness outside the windows and lights turned on in the bedroom and bathroom. Rachel leans against the doorframe with her eyes on the bed, dressed in the baggy t-shirt and shorts of two nights ago, clean and fresh and plucked from hangers in her closet.
Made bed, pillows fluffed and blankets folded. Should be a mint on her pillow, she would have tipped housekeeping on its way out. Maybe asked for roomservice later.
She turns off the bathroom light and reaches for the switch in the bedroom.
Stops when her throat starts to close.
Panic closing in.
Twisted sheets.
Furniture where it doesn't belong.
No one coming to shake her awake and tell her its a nightmare.
A million places to run and no one who knows to meet her there.
"Can I have Lawyer Barbie?"
Rachel frowns and turns to scan the room. Her littlest sister's space always looks like Mattel threw up in it: pink flowered wallpaper and a pink Barbie rug. Barbie's dreamhouse with several of those worthies hanging out in the sauna or the limo or in front of the pink plastic big screen. A few Skipper and Ken groupies here and there, making sure Barbie stays popular. Some Kelly's to encourage breeding. Or something.
About a billion more on the desk with the hand-painted flowers, or the white dresser with pink polka dots.
She spots the right doll up on the dresser, stretched out in front of some floppy plastic books, adventures to the mall or the sea or the Space Station, or whatever Barbie does with all her free time. Lawyer Barbie has a pink plastic briefcase and pink plastic glasses to make her look smart. She used to have long flowing blonde hair, too, but Sara had cut it short almost as soon as she'd gotten the thing out of its packaging. "To look more like Mommy," she'd said, though the only blonde in the house was Rachel and Sara wouldn't hear of dying the thing's hair.
She picks it up and walks back over to the bed. The comforter has a disturbingly large version of Barbie's face beaming vacantly at the ceiling and her little sister - small and round-faced with her silky dark hair - beams, too. Less vacantly, though. There's hope for her yet.
"I thought Mom said you couldn't have this one," Rachel points out, kneeling beside the bed and checking to make sure no little feet have wormed their way free of the tucking-in job she did.
Sara takes the Barbie happily and immediately starts smoothing its raggedly shorn hair. "She changed her mind," she says simply, with all the innocence of the youngest child, the baby of the family.
Rachel snorts. Hope stops where her sister's tantrums begin.
"Better?" she asks, tugging the blanket up when Sara's shifting had pushed it down to her waist. "Got your drink, brushed your teeth, Lawyer Barbie's ready to legalize your dreams into hard sentences... think you can sleep?"
"Mmhmm." Barbie and her briefcase are tucked into bed beside her and Sara looks up at her sister. "When's Mommy coming home?"
"Late. You'll see her tomorrow, though. Before school."
"But when?"
Rachel sighs and sits back on the floor. It's not like she has to put her sisters to bed every night. Just often enough for Sara's repetition of the same questions over and over to drive her crazy, even on a normal night.
And spending all the hours of the afternoon immediately following school on heavy surveillance around the city was not normal. Or allowing for much patience.
"I don't know, Sara. Around ten, I think?"
"Can I stay u-"
"No."
Sara pouts, bottom lip sticking out, but it doesn't stay long. The face doesn't work well on Rachel during the best of times, least of all when she's grumpy. As soon as Sara starts it, her big sister is already pushing herself up to her feet, giving the Barbie comforter one last smoothing. "See you in the mo-"
"Wait!" Sara cries, so suddenly that Rachel's whole body seems to freeze up and snap into action at the same time. She whirls-- but all Sara's doing is sitting up (damn it), clutching Lawyer Barbie, and pointing to the door to the bathroom she shares with their other sister. "You didn't turn the light on!"
Another sigh and Rachel can feel herself deflate with it. Like the air in her lungs had been holding her shoulders up, too. "I thought you and Jordan had figured that out. She told me you weren't going to have that on anymore."
Another lip-wobble, though this one's different. It's not for show and her dark eyes dart to the closet, then to the space directly beneath her bed, with true fear.
Rachel can tell the difference these days pretty easily.
"But..."
Another deep breath. Another sigh. It's been a long day but it's not Sara's fault. Little sister with the big doe eyes and the doll addiction. Softly, Rachel walks back to her bed and kneels there, putting her face on a level with Sara's.
"Listen, Jordan's straight through the bathroom. You know that's why she hates having the light on, she can see it from her bed. So she's right there. And I'm right across the hall. And when Mom gets home, she'll be down at the other end. We're all here, Sara."
"But..." she glances down at the floor again, Lawyer Barbie hugged tightly to her chest, "what if... there's monsters?"
If there's monsters, Rachel does not say, hesitating before she speaks, they're sure as hell not gonna come through the front door and sneak in your room first, kiddo. They'll walk up to you in broad daylight and carefully and cheerfully steal you away to their secret underground lair so they can shove a slug through your ear.
"There won't be any monsters," she says, and marvels at how easy lying has become.
Sara is unconvinced, dark eyes on the carpet beside her bed again. "But how do you know? There could be! Please, Rachel, I just want the light on, pleeeeeeease?"
And it totally shouldn't work, the begging and pleading, and wouldn't if Rachel couldn't tell the difference between real and faked fear anymore. With that knowledge, the look in a little girl's eyes tugs at something sharp inside of her and she feels her resolve weakening.
But man, if she has to listen to her little sisters scream at each other about a stupid bathroom light one more time...
"What if you just try it with the light off, just this one night?"
"Raaaaaaacheeeeeel."
Big Sister sighs. She'll need to take a new tactic.
"...what if I could promise you that I'll protect you from all the monsters?"
Sara stops her pleading and woeful lip wobbling immediately to blink at her, confused. "What?"
"I could, you know. That's why I'm here while Mom's gone - to look after you guys."
Sara frowns slightly, still obviously concerned. "...Mommy always says there's no such thing as monsters."
"What?"
"When I tell her I'm scared, she says they're not real."
Crap.
"Well, you think they're real," Rachel says quickly, leaning back on her hands and keeping a sharp eye on the edges of the blanket to make sure it stays tucked. "So I'm just letting you know, any bad thing that gets in here will have a ways to go before it gets to you."
"Through you?"
"Yup."
"Through Jordan?"
"Oh, definitely. Girl snores."
Sara giggles and Rachel allows herself a moment of hope. "So you won't even have a chance to be scared tonight, because no bad guy or monster will get close enough for you to see or hear them. Any noises or shadows are just gonna be that - noises and shadows. Nothing else."
"But what if a monster gets in anyway?"
Rachel sighs again, considering this. "If a monster gets in here, you just scream your head off and I'll come running and kick its butt."
"What if I can't scream?"
Rachel shakes her head, solemn. "Monsters eat slow. You just scream while he's working on your toes and I'll come break your door down all dramatically."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Kid-chugging makes monsters sick. Upset tummies, you know?"
This seems to work better, though not perfectly. Sara fiddles with Lawyer Barbie's briefcase. The glasses had already fallen off and Rachel reaches for them, almost lost in the sea of pink comforter, to fit them back on the fixed plastic face.
"You'll really come?" Sara's question is abrupt with just the slightest note of panic. Rachel can hear tones pretty well these days, too, tell real fear from acting. "Mom says there's no such thing as monsters, she always says she won't need t'come."
"Well," Rachel answers immediately, taking her chance and putting both hands to her sister's shoulders and gently pushing her back down to the mattress, "if a monster comes in here and starts bothering you, he'll find out I'm a monster, too."
"And you'll get rid of him?"
"You bet."
"Promise?"
Rachel closes her eyes, sighs once, then opens them and holds out her fist. "Sara, I will pinkie-promise that I'll come in here at first sign of a monster and kick its butt if you'll go to sleep."
Immediately, her sister brightens. Pudgy little pinkie finger curled into hers, shook once while they both kiss their fists.
Rachel finds herself smiling as she straightens up again, tugging the blanket up to Sara's shoulders. "Okay then. Now sleep."
This time she gets to the door first.
"Rachel?"
"Yeah?"
"...can I still have the bathroom light on?"
Rachel stares at the little lump of not-so-pink in the darkness for a long moment before sighing. Again. And still leaning out to flick the switch. "Don't you come crying to me if this wakes Jordan up."
"But you said you'd protect me!"
"Monsters are one thing, squirt. I'm not taking on the wrath of the middle sister."
Bed with bland covers and pillows. Muted beige on the walls. Furniture of medium-tone wood. Nothing special, standard hotel room.
Little girl looking to her for protection. A good year before Sara had understood - maybe even before Rachel had really understood - what she'd meant by that.
I'm a monster, too.
The bathroom light pops on with a little click as her fingers press the switch. Enough light to still be able to see shapes and outlines when the bedroom light goes out.
Rachel falls into bed and closes her eyes, finding the darkness there.
And when the twisted memories wake her, the golden light pouring into the bedroom is enough that she immediately knows where she is, what she is doing there, and why no one has come yet.
Or will come at all.
Those last few minutes before head met pillow are blurred but Rachel faintly remembers blue-tipped fingers.
So she slept. For most of the evening, and then again, almost the full night. Woke early and returned her things to Bar, got another note for her trouble. Telling her it was all right to go upstairs now and, if she wouldn't mind, could she be a little more careful next time please?
She'd been inclined to ignore it but Rachel, drowsy and foggy and in yesterday-- two night's ago? - clothes, mumbled something that might have been an apology and trudged up the stairs.
It's not until she's standing on the threshold looking in, spotless living room and dry carpet, that it occurs to her who might have done the cleaning. If it wasn't all snap your fingers - or splinters - and poof! clean. All Poppins-style about it.
That it might have been the staff of waiters scurrying around her room cleaning up after her.
Rachel shudders, shakes her head sharply, and steps inside.
She stays inside for the day. It won't hurt anything and it's not like there's any obligations she's avoiding. A day without running or gymnastics won't hurt her either.
And vegging is good for the soul.
There's a TV, just like she'd guessed when talking to Cy. It's got shows and movies on it. She catches a few episodes of soap operas, stretched out on her couch and listening to unplanned babies and evil twins and secret love affairs for a while. Zones out, more like. A few names catch her attention but they're coincidence only and quickly ignored.
Talk shows. No news or weather, she notices, but then what would be the point?
Today there will be light explosions out the window inside the bar along with the heavy snow in the Enchanted Forest. Later, the explosions will increase in a neverending loop and some shapeshifters may paint the snow red with the blood of demon rabbits. Stay tuned!
Yeah, no.
The light brightens outside her closed balcony doors.
And slowly, starts to dim again.
A wall clock with hands and roman numerals tells her it's evening. Six o'clock. Dinnertime.
She hasn't eaten since last night and in considering this, face half mashed on the couch cushion, wonders for the first time if she even needs to anymore.
She doesn't feel hungry and it has nothing to do with emotions or nightmares.
Or the heart that doesn't pound in her throat.
Get up. Shower. Hot water. Watching pale skin turn pink beneath the spray. She can feel the hot, enough that she's fairly certain a burn would be painful if not fatal.
Notes these things with detached curiosity. These are the facts of not'life.
"Dead Ed should have been offered as an elective," Rachel mutters beneath the pounding of the water.
Darkness outside the windows and lights turned on in the bedroom and bathroom. Rachel leans against the doorframe with her eyes on the bed, dressed in the baggy t-shirt and shorts of two nights ago, clean and fresh and plucked from hangers in her closet.
Made bed, pillows fluffed and blankets folded. Should be a mint on her pillow, she would have tipped housekeeping on its way out. Maybe asked for roomservice later.
She turns off the bathroom light and reaches for the switch in the bedroom.
Stops when her throat starts to close.
Panic closing in.
Twisted sheets.
Furniture where it doesn't belong.
No one coming to shake her awake and tell her its a nightmare.
A million places to run and no one who knows to meet her there.
"Can I have Lawyer Barbie?"
Rachel frowns and turns to scan the room. Her littlest sister's space always looks like Mattel threw up in it: pink flowered wallpaper and a pink Barbie rug. Barbie's dreamhouse with several of those worthies hanging out in the sauna or the limo or in front of the pink plastic big screen. A few Skipper and Ken groupies here and there, making sure Barbie stays popular. Some Kelly's to encourage breeding. Or something.
About a billion more on the desk with the hand-painted flowers, or the white dresser with pink polka dots.
She spots the right doll up on the dresser, stretched out in front of some floppy plastic books, adventures to the mall or the sea or the Space Station, or whatever Barbie does with all her free time. Lawyer Barbie has a pink plastic briefcase and pink plastic glasses to make her look smart. She used to have long flowing blonde hair, too, but Sara had cut it short almost as soon as she'd gotten the thing out of its packaging. "To look more like Mommy," she'd said, though the only blonde in the house was Rachel and Sara wouldn't hear of dying the thing's hair.
She picks it up and walks back over to the bed. The comforter has a disturbingly large version of Barbie's face beaming vacantly at the ceiling and her little sister - small and round-faced with her silky dark hair - beams, too. Less vacantly, though. There's hope for her yet.
"I thought Mom said you couldn't have this one," Rachel points out, kneeling beside the bed and checking to make sure no little feet have wormed their way free of the tucking-in job she did.
Sara takes the Barbie happily and immediately starts smoothing its raggedly shorn hair. "She changed her mind," she says simply, with all the innocence of the youngest child, the baby of the family.
Rachel snorts. Hope stops where her sister's tantrums begin.
"Better?" she asks, tugging the blanket up when Sara's shifting had pushed it down to her waist. "Got your drink, brushed your teeth, Lawyer Barbie's ready to legalize your dreams into hard sentences... think you can sleep?"
"Mmhmm." Barbie and her briefcase are tucked into bed beside her and Sara looks up at her sister. "When's Mommy coming home?"
"Late. You'll see her tomorrow, though. Before school."
"But when?"
Rachel sighs and sits back on the floor. It's not like she has to put her sisters to bed every night. Just often enough for Sara's repetition of the same questions over and over to drive her crazy, even on a normal night.
And spending all the hours of the afternoon immediately following school on heavy surveillance around the city was not normal. Or allowing for much patience.
"I don't know, Sara. Around ten, I think?"
"Can I stay u-"
"No."
Sara pouts, bottom lip sticking out, but it doesn't stay long. The face doesn't work well on Rachel during the best of times, least of all when she's grumpy. As soon as Sara starts it, her big sister is already pushing herself up to her feet, giving the Barbie comforter one last smoothing. "See you in the mo-"
"Wait!" Sara cries, so suddenly that Rachel's whole body seems to freeze up and snap into action at the same time. She whirls-- but all Sara's doing is sitting up (damn it), clutching Lawyer Barbie, and pointing to the door to the bathroom she shares with their other sister. "You didn't turn the light on!"
Another sigh and Rachel can feel herself deflate with it. Like the air in her lungs had been holding her shoulders up, too. "I thought you and Jordan had figured that out. She told me you weren't going to have that on anymore."
Another lip-wobble, though this one's different. It's not for show and her dark eyes dart to the closet, then to the space directly beneath her bed, with true fear.
Rachel can tell the difference these days pretty easily.
"But..."
Another deep breath. Another sigh. It's been a long day but it's not Sara's fault. Little sister with the big doe eyes and the doll addiction. Softly, Rachel walks back to her bed and kneels there, putting her face on a level with Sara's.
"Listen, Jordan's straight through the bathroom. You know that's why she hates having the light on, she can see it from her bed. So she's right there. And I'm right across the hall. And when Mom gets home, she'll be down at the other end. We're all here, Sara."
"But..." she glances down at the floor again, Lawyer Barbie hugged tightly to her chest, "what if... there's monsters?"
If there's monsters, Rachel does not say, hesitating before she speaks, they're sure as hell not gonna come through the front door and sneak in your room first, kiddo. They'll walk up to you in broad daylight and carefully and cheerfully steal you away to their secret underground lair so they can shove a slug through your ear.
"There won't be any monsters," she says, and marvels at how easy lying has become.
Sara is unconvinced, dark eyes on the carpet beside her bed again. "But how do you know? There could be! Please, Rachel, I just want the light on, pleeeeeeease?"
And it totally shouldn't work, the begging and pleading, and wouldn't if Rachel couldn't tell the difference between real and faked fear anymore. With that knowledge, the look in a little girl's eyes tugs at something sharp inside of her and she feels her resolve weakening.
But man, if she has to listen to her little sisters scream at each other about a stupid bathroom light one more time...
"What if you just try it with the light off, just this one night?"
"Raaaaaaacheeeeeel."
Big Sister sighs. She'll need to take a new tactic.
"...what if I could promise you that I'll protect you from all the monsters?"
Sara stops her pleading and woeful lip wobbling immediately to blink at her, confused. "What?"
"I could, you know. That's why I'm here while Mom's gone - to look after you guys."
Sara frowns slightly, still obviously concerned. "...Mommy always says there's no such thing as monsters."
"What?"
"When I tell her I'm scared, she says they're not real."
Crap.
"Well, you think they're real," Rachel says quickly, leaning back on her hands and keeping a sharp eye on the edges of the blanket to make sure it stays tucked. "So I'm just letting you know, any bad thing that gets in here will have a ways to go before it gets to you."
"Through you?"
"Yup."
"Through Jordan?"
"Oh, definitely. Girl snores."
Sara giggles and Rachel allows herself a moment of hope. "So you won't even have a chance to be scared tonight, because no bad guy or monster will get close enough for you to see or hear them. Any noises or shadows are just gonna be that - noises and shadows. Nothing else."
"But what if a monster gets in anyway?"
Rachel sighs again, considering this. "If a monster gets in here, you just scream your head off and I'll come running and kick its butt."
"What if I can't scream?"
Rachel shakes her head, solemn. "Monsters eat slow. You just scream while he's working on your toes and I'll come break your door down all dramatically."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Kid-chugging makes monsters sick. Upset tummies, you know?"
This seems to work better, though not perfectly. Sara fiddles with Lawyer Barbie's briefcase. The glasses had already fallen off and Rachel reaches for them, almost lost in the sea of pink comforter, to fit them back on the fixed plastic face.
"You'll really come?" Sara's question is abrupt with just the slightest note of panic. Rachel can hear tones pretty well these days, too, tell real fear from acting. "Mom says there's no such thing as monsters, she always says she won't need t'come."
"Well," Rachel answers immediately, taking her chance and putting both hands to her sister's shoulders and gently pushing her back down to the mattress, "if a monster comes in here and starts bothering you, he'll find out I'm a monster, too."
"And you'll get rid of him?"
"You bet."
"Promise?"
Rachel closes her eyes, sighs once, then opens them and holds out her fist. "Sara, I will pinkie-promise that I'll come in here at first sign of a monster and kick its butt if you'll go to sleep."
Immediately, her sister brightens. Pudgy little pinkie finger curled into hers, shook once while they both kiss their fists.
Rachel finds herself smiling as she straightens up again, tugging the blanket up to Sara's shoulders. "Okay then. Now sleep."
This time she gets to the door first.
"Rachel?"
"Yeah?"
"...can I still have the bathroom light on?"
Rachel stares at the little lump of not-so-pink in the darkness for a long moment before sighing. Again. And still leaning out to flick the switch. "Don't you come crying to me if this wakes Jordan up."
"But you said you'd protect me!"
"Monsters are one thing, squirt. I'm not taking on the wrath of the middle sister."
Bed with bland covers and pillows. Muted beige on the walls. Furniture of medium-tone wood. Nothing special, standard hotel room.
Little girl looking to her for protection. A good year before Sara had understood - maybe even before Rachel had really understood - what she'd meant by that.
I'm a monster, too.
The bathroom light pops on with a little click as her fingers press the switch. Enough light to still be able to see shapes and outlines when the bedroom light goes out.
Rachel falls into bed and closes her eyes, finding the darkness there.
And when the twisted memories wake her, the golden light pouring into the bedroom is enough that she immediately knows where she is, what she is doing there, and why no one has come yet.
Or will come at all.