fanfic: sometimes she remembers | shameless, karen jackson
title; rating: sometimes she remembers, pg13
character; wordcount: karen jackson, 340
notes: this is recovery and it's for stainofmylove here.
Karen never fully recovers.
Not in the ways that really matter.
She learns to walk again, just like that. And one spring, sometime later, she enrolls in dance classes and surprises everyone with how quickly she picks things up. They make it seem like it's a big deal.
It's not a big deal.
Nothing is and nothing ever was.
-
She barely notices when Jody takes off with Hymie. Not that she really noticed when they were there, either.
-
Her mother calls.
She calls and she talks and Karen listens but she doesn't ever really say anything back. She definitely doesn't ask about Lip or the Gallaghers or anything back home. After a while, she gets the impression that if she did, Sheila wouldn't have anything to say anyway.
Probably for the best.
-
She gets promoted at work. She learns to cook. She starts to realize that she enjoys getting up early in the morning... watching the sun rise over the mountains.
That's new.
-
There's this instructor at her dance studio.
He's Russian or Romanian or something... Karen doesn't know because she doesn't ask.
And the way he moves on the dance floor is almost as beautiful as the way he moves inside her when she takes him back to her place and they do it in the stone garden behind her house in those last moments of desert twilight.
-
He does yoga in the mornings. Saluting the sun. One more reason to love mornings, she thinks.
-
He taps the calendar in the entry hall.
"Next week," he points to a day, something scribbled there. "You'll come along? Take the day off?"
His accent washes over her as some memory struggles its way to the surface.
Something that once was important to her.
And even though it isn't anymore, somehow it's still there. Still jutting into her mind, unwelcome and unwanted, reminding her of all the ways she's broken.
All the way she's fixed.
She smiles, steals the cup of tea from his hands, sips.
"Couldn't miss it."
-fin
character; wordcount: karen jackson, 340
notes: this is recovery and it's for stainofmylove here.
Karen never fully recovers.
Not in the ways that really matter.
She learns to walk again, just like that. And one spring, sometime later, she enrolls in dance classes and surprises everyone with how quickly she picks things up. They make it seem like it's a big deal.
It's not a big deal.
Nothing is and nothing ever was.
-
She barely notices when Jody takes off with Hymie. Not that she really noticed when they were there, either.
-
Her mother calls.
She calls and she talks and Karen listens but she doesn't ever really say anything back. She definitely doesn't ask about Lip or the Gallaghers or anything back home. After a while, she gets the impression that if she did, Sheila wouldn't have anything to say anyway.
Probably for the best.
-
She gets promoted at work. She learns to cook. She starts to realize that she enjoys getting up early in the morning... watching the sun rise over the mountains.
That's new.
-
There's this instructor at her dance studio.
He's Russian or Romanian or something... Karen doesn't know because she doesn't ask.
And the way he moves on the dance floor is almost as beautiful as the way he moves inside her when she takes him back to her place and they do it in the stone garden behind her house in those last moments of desert twilight.
-
He does yoga in the mornings. Saluting the sun. One more reason to love mornings, she thinks.
-
He taps the calendar in the entry hall.
"Next week," he points to a day, something scribbled there. "You'll come along? Take the day off?"
His accent washes over her as some memory struggles its way to the surface.
Something that once was important to her.
And even though it isn't anymore, somehow it's still there. Still jutting into her mind, unwelcome and unwanted, reminding her of all the ways she's broken.
All the way she's fixed.
She smiles, steals the cup of tea from his hands, sips.
"Couldn't miss it."
-fin