Happy Galentine's Day
Not so relevant to this post, except that it's a story about a woman who is awesome: against my better judgment I got antsy and posted fic on a Saturday evening, even though we all know that's a bad time to do these things if you want anyone to see it. So in case you're interested and missed it, A Fairer House than Prose (or on DW) is my long-
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Anna Gibson doesn't really remember being Savannah Weaver.
She has a few blurry memories of her biological father. (These are easy to conflate with the stories she's told so many times she believes them. "It's funny," her friends so often say, "that you're so much closer to your dad than your mom, since he's technically your stepdad." "Yeah," Anna replies, "but I don't really remember my other dad. He died when I was really little, and then my mom married James.") Her memories of her biological mother are a little sharper but not altogether pleasant. (These, too, she can incorporate. "My mom isn't very good at showing affection, but she does try, in her own way.")
Then there was the confusing period, when sometimes she was Savannah but not Weaver, and then, when Sarah decided "Savannah" was too distinctive (like the red hair they dyed brown in motel bathrooms), she became Anna but not yet Gibson. Sarah and James became Mom and Dad, and they all mostly lived in the car. They practiced names and stories every morning at breakfast.
The end of that time is particularly blurry, and Anna thinks maybe she's forgotten some of that on purpose. There were scary men, and a lot of guns, and her parents fought a lot, but like they were frightened rather than angry. She had to stay sometimes with a lady named Terissa, and one day her parents came back dirty and bloody and shaking, but her dad picked her up and said that it was all over, and they would be okay now. Her mom said, "it's never over."
They became the Gibsons then, and moved to Toronto, and things were okay. Her mom is a waitress, and her dad is an insurance adjustor, and they hate the cold, and make pancakes on Saturday mornings, and sometimes they dance together in the living room, late at night when they think Anna has gone to bed.
There are also things Anna hasn't forgotten. She remembers a friend who was a machine and lived in the basement. She remembers stories about the end of the world. She remembers how to load and fire a semi-automatic handgun. Her mother reminds her of these things (they practice with the guns in the basement, even though they're illegal in Canada), and when Anna announces her intention to study the history and philosophy of technology, her parents give her their cautious blessing.
"If it's what you really want, sweetheart," says her dad, and she knows he wishes she wanted to be a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher or anything else.
"You can help me keep up with new developments in robotics software, then," says her mom. "Just be careful. You know we're never really safe."
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Her memories of her biological mother are a little sharper but not altogether pleasant. (These, too, she can incorporate. "My mom isn't very good at showing affection, but she does try, in her own way.")
Eeep. I'm torn between laughter and a sadface, because that would be very true for a life with Sarah as a mother figure.
Sarah and James became Mom and Dad, and they all mostly lived in the car. They practiced names and stories every morning at breakfast.
Nice sharp detail here.
...her dad picked her up and said that it was all over, and they would be okay now. Her mom said, "it's never over."
Sneaky, putting this in Savannah's POV, so we don't know exactly what happened. Heh. Interesting way of presenting some kind of closure.
"Just be careful. You know we're never really safe."
Awwww... I'm amused that this line makes me feel all happy about their little permanently robot-bent family.
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Mostly, I'm glad you enjoyed this! It's probably not the future I think might actually happen, but it is something I've thought about, in terms of the larger details, so I actually do know more or less what I think happened to stop Judgment Day (though Savannah, of course, doesn't really know--though perhaps at some point she will). But whether that whole story ever gets written remains to be seen. I don't exactly do long and plotty, after all.
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OH ROBOT FIGHTING UNRELATED FAMILY. I'm...even a little sad she didn't get a brother. But mostly it's awesome the way Sarah is an awesome a sucky Mom and of course she's closer to James, and the way you show the early parts of her life bleeding together into a strange bedtime nightmare story. The way obviously Sarah is honestly and upfront with her about the threat even after it's "over" but Savannah's perspective itself never affirms or denies an adult belief in her childhood with killer robots.
In conclusion: ♥
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(And Savannah has a brother in her stories: his name was John, and he died in the car crash with their dad, when she was little, and this is why her mom is sad sometimes. But there won't be any new brothers or sisters, even though she wanted one for a while there, because that would make her mom even sadder.)
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maybe especially the dancing - I have a Sarah/James heart made of pudding!
<3 Me too! I really cannot resist my desire to squish them together, in their slightly awkward, slightly snarky ambivalence toward each other. And for some reason, in my head they always dance.
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