[Fic: Watched You Suffer]
Four a.m. isn't a time where one is normally seen baking, when eggs are cracked and batter mixed and dough pounded. Gladys always like the early early morning, though--or rather, late late night, because she hadn't slept yet. She couldn't sleep yet, because she couldn't stop thinking. Baking was good to stop thinking.
Except for the parts where she slipped into an almost robotic motion--crack the egg, stir stir stir--and she stopped having to think about anything. The little, dangerous moments slipped in between the cracks of an idle mind, and settled in the forefront of her brain. The stuff she worked repress, memories too painful to think about, all of it came rushing back to her.
It all felt too clear when she knew that more than sixty years had passed. The stench, burnt flesh that no one could quite put a finger on. The small smiles she exchanged with the others, hiding the winces as someone was beaten for the slightest misstep, the overwhelming pounding in her ears that settled in right next to her heartbeat--help, help, help.
She wasn't crying. She tried hard not to cry, at least, because crying got you hit and being hit got you angry and Gladys didn't have it in her to be angry. Anger was fuel for some people, but for Gladys it just exhausted her. She had other coping mechanisms. She had hope.
It seemed almost insane, to dedicate yourself to hope in such a hopeless place, but Gladys knew hope kept people together, and with her family she had worked so hard to bring together, she intended to keep them with her with a relentless hope that she could not let die. Hope that maybe that day Elijah wouldn't find anyone he had to help die, that she could coax Eva to take a little of her bread, poor starving girl, that Jeremy would smile at her. She had hope that she could maybe get away with healing a scrape on Eva's leg or a bump on Jeremy's head. She could still feel the hope, the one thing the Nazis hadn't been able to take from her.
Except they had. They had ripped apart her family, killed her family one by one until she went crazy with the drumbeat--help, help, help help.It had taken a faulty memory wipe to rebuild her, to relight her hope, to let her move forward. She had seen the records after it all came back--it was how she remembered the names to the faces she saw all too clearly in front of her eyes, the faces that pleaded to her, that chorused with the pounding: help, help, help.
Gladys put down the spoon she was using to stir, and leaned into the counter, taking in the smell that wasn't dead bodies, running her hand through the flour that was going to be used for cookies, not a sad moldy excuse for bread. She was alive, and she still had her hope, and she still had a family. The memories were far too clear, but so was Gladys--sharp, bold and alive, no matter how many years went by.
Muse: Gladys
Word count: 527 words
For: _coherent and sighofthings
Except for the parts where she slipped into an almost robotic motion--crack the egg, stir stir stir--and she stopped having to think about anything. The little, dangerous moments slipped in between the cracks of an idle mind, and settled in the forefront of her brain. The stuff she worked repress, memories too painful to think about, all of it came rushing back to her.
It all felt too clear when she knew that more than sixty years had passed. The stench, burnt flesh that no one could quite put a finger on. The small smiles she exchanged with the others, hiding the winces as someone was beaten for the slightest misstep, the overwhelming pounding in her ears that settled in right next to her heartbeat--help, help, help.
She wasn't crying. She tried hard not to cry, at least, because crying got you hit and being hit got you angry and Gladys didn't have it in her to be angry. Anger was fuel for some people, but for Gladys it just exhausted her. She had other coping mechanisms. She had hope.
It seemed almost insane, to dedicate yourself to hope in such a hopeless place, but Gladys knew hope kept people together, and with her family she had worked so hard to bring together, she intended to keep them with her with a relentless hope that she could not let die. Hope that maybe that day Elijah wouldn't find anyone he had to help die, that she could coax Eva to take a little of her bread, poor starving girl, that Jeremy would smile at her. She had hope that she could maybe get away with healing a scrape on Eva's leg or a bump on Jeremy's head. She could still feel the hope, the one thing the Nazis hadn't been able to take from her.
Except they had. They had ripped apart her family, killed her family one by one until she went crazy with the drumbeat--help, help, help help.It had taken a faulty memory wipe to rebuild her, to relight her hope, to let her move forward. She had seen the records after it all came back--it was how she remembered the names to the faces she saw all too clearly in front of her eyes, the faces that pleaded to her, that chorused with the pounding: help, help, help.
Gladys put down the spoon she was using to stir, and leaned into the counter, taking in the smell that wasn't dead bodies, running her hand through the flour that was going to be used for cookies, not a sad moldy excuse for bread. She was alive, and she still had her hope, and she still had a family. The memories were far too clear, but so was Gladys--sharp, bold and alive, no matter how many years went by.
Muse: Gladys
Word count: 527 words
For: _coherent and sighofthings