(no subject)
Title: Not The Last Time
Author: Caitlin,
amor_demi_alma
Pairing: Mary Anne / Dawn
Written for:
elisabeth_grace
in
short_takes
who wanted: their house, a disagreement (not necessarily between them), and a messed up paperback
Rating: G
Summary: Dawn's back in Stoneybrook for the summer after her senior year, having left California and her graduating class there behind. She and Mary Anne have spent a great summer together, presumably catching up and remembering the good old times in the BSC. But going off to college isn't easy for anyone, and especially not for the two stepsisters. Mary Anne's dad wants to accompany her to school, but he also wants to be with Dawn, who's leaving the exact same day ... and, of course, Sharon is facing the same dilemma with Dawn and Mary Anne. Mary Anne and Dawn will just have to remember that, even amidst the turmoil of a complex family affair like theirs, sisterly love is really all they'll need.
Author's Note: I'm so sorry this is late,
elisabeth_grace
! I was so excited that I was writing for you, and I wanted so badly to be on time! But I do have a good excuse, as you know: I moved into college myself ... which, in itself, provided me some fodder for my story. I hope this was somewhat what you were looking for! It's my first BSC fic and my first challenge, and I know it was yours, too ... so hopefully you can sympathize. :) BTW, I hope that the "family problems" can count as a disagreement. And who Mary Anne likes in this fic is meant to be up to the reader!
It was the last night before college was due to start. Dawn would be off to California with Sharon ... off to UCLA, where she'd always wanted to go. Where she could study environmentalism in the sunshine and eat all the vegetables and health food she wanted. (Ew, ew, ew!)
And me? Well, I would be staying right here in Stoneybrook, going to the local university, like I'd always known I would. Not that Dad wouldn't have let me go away if I'd wanted to--thanks to Sharon, he probably would have permitted it--but, somehow, I just wasn't ready to take that step. It was hard enough having to accept that Dawn, like everyone else, would be gone: off in California having adventures whose depths I could only begin to imagine.
"Mary Anne?" Dawn was rapping at my bedroom door. "Are you still awake in there?"
"Yeah." I reached out one hand just enough to switch on my bedside lamp. "Come in, if you want to."
The door creaked when Dawn pushed it, and then she was sitting on the edge of my bed. The light played across her cornsilk-like hair, which cascaded over my comforter as she flicked it out from beneath her.
"You nervous?" she quipped.
I turned my head away, not wanting her to see that my tears had already begun to well in my eyes. It had been all well and good for me to be a crybaby when we were all at SMS; now that we were soon-to-be college students, though, I felt that it was hardly permissible.
"Mary Anne, please don't cry." Dawn stretched out beside me, draping her arm over my waist. "It'll be fine. You'll have a great time!"
"I'm going to miss all of you," I wailed into my pillow, feeling like a first-class jerk for bawling. "And I hate that ... that neither of us has a ... a whole family to get us to college."
Dawn was silent for a moment, just letting me cry. All I could hear, besides my own ragged breathing, was the groaning and complaining of our refurbished barn out back.
"What do you mean?" Dawn asked after a while. "Do you mean that you wish your mother was alive?"
"Not just that!" I tried to find words to convey what I was feeling. "I just ... I wish your parents were together still ... and I wish that you and I could just go off to school knowing that our real parents--our original parents--were alive and in one piece and in love with each other."
Dawn nodded; I could feel her chin bumping the top of my head when she did. "I guess I see what you mean."
"And it's not just family," I added, scrambling out of bed. "It's just ... everyone!" I ran to my bookshelf, scanning it for what I wanted.
"What are you looking for?" Dawn was sitting up now, staring at me with wide eyes.
I found what I was looking for and returned to the bed, opening my yearbook from junior year as I went and paging swiftly through it. I stopped on a page headed "Now And Then" and pointed to two snapshots.
The first was the photo that Jeff had taken when us BSC-ERS were in seventh grade--the one that I had hung on the wall of my old house when Dawn had helped me redecorate right after she moved here. There were the five of us, arranged oh-so-neatly on Claudia's bed. There were Claudia, Stacey and Dawn kneeling against the wall. Claudia looked as stylish as ever. Stacey, with her fluffy perm and somewhat devilish grin, had her arm around Claud. Dawn was absolutely beaming. Her hand was on my shoulder. Kristy and I were in front of the three of them. We also had our arms around each other.
"I love that picture," Dawn mused. She extended a hand and touched the page gently, as though she could somehow soak up the friendship and camaraderie through her fingertip.
"And then look what happened." I pointed to the second shot: the one that was juxtaposed with the first.
It had been taken junior year. Kristy and I were still in front of everyone else, but we looked different.
It was remarkable, really ... all that Kristy had gone through. She'd always been so strong, such an ideas person. But being separated so drastically in age from the other kids in her family had taken its toll on her. The isolation had to catch up with her sometime. That spark in her brown eyes--that gleam that would have alerted anyone who knew Kristy at all to the fact that she was getting an idea--had vanished sometime around sophomore year. Somewhere around the time when she had started to drift away from the rest of us.
Or had we all drifted from one another?
And then there was Claudia. That "I'm-thinking-about-an-art-project" glint had somewhat left her eyes in this picture, too. And Stacey didn't look much happier.
"But Claud and Stace didn't stay sad like that, Mary Anne." Dawn knew what I was thinking. "You know that. They didn't get together until senior year. That's why they look like that. It was hard for them: hiding how they felt all that time, keeping that secret because of how Claud's parents would have reacted."
I nodded. "I know! That's what I mean!"
"What's what you mean?"
"They could do it--they could get better--so why couldn't I?"
"Mary Anne," Dawn lectured, "we've been through this before. Logan was an idiot. You can do better than him ... and you will. Just wait 'til college ... you'll see."
"It's not Logan!" Suddenly overcome, I fisted several pages of the yearbook and wrenched. Dawn gasped as the pages' connection to the binding tore, leaving nothing but jagged fragments clinging to the inside of the spine.
"Mary Anne? What ..." Dawn looked completely bewildered.
"I wanted to have the ... the kind of guts that they did!" The yearbook was still open to the page with our pictures. I traced my huge, goofy grin of five years ago, staring at the small, familiar features. And then I ran my finger across the corresponding face in the newer snapshot. I examined it: the shorter hair hanging on either side, the same eyes and nose ... the lips. Straight.
No smile on me, either.
I'd never wanted to be in this position--never wanted to be coming out to my stepsister the night before we parted for college--but there was no way out ... except to out.
"I'm gay, Dawn," I blurted, eyeing my hands because I didn't want to meet her gaze.
Dawn's hand fell on my shoulder and I almost jumped at the unexpected contact. And then her arms were around me, and she was hugging me close, smelling of soap and toothpaste and all that white-blonde hair. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, her lips buzzing against my cheek.
"I don't know," was all I could think to reply.
"Did you think I'd take it badly?"
"I thought ... I don't know ... that you'd think I was just ... just saying it because of Stacey and Claud. Or because of Logan not working out. Or because I wanted to ... to fit in or something. But I've always been ... I mean ... I always was."
"I think I knew before you did," Dawn claimed, obviously trying to break the emotional mood.
"What?" I pulled away and stared at her, bringing up my hands to dry my eyes.
"Remember Alexandra Carmody at Disney World?" Dawn smiled, visibly fighting back a fit of giggles. "The way you stared at her?"
"I did not!"
"You're blushing."
"I'm not!"
Dawn laughed gently, replacing the yearbook on my nightstand and snapping off the lamp. She climbed beneath the covers of my bed.
"What're you doing?" I was surprised by her action.
"Staying with you."
"Why?"
"So you'll believe me when I tell you that I'll always be here for you."
"I know you will."
"I don't care how messed up my family is, Mary Anne." Dawn was drawing the blankets over me as I climbed back into bed beside her. "I don't care that my dad's all stuck in a cloud with stupid Carol and doesn't even care that I'm moving to UCLA. I don't care that Mom's still mad at him for it, even though there's really no use in her taking the time to even think about it." Dawn pulled me in against her, wrapping her arms around my back. "But I know that it's hard for you. Sharon's the only mom you've ever known, and she feels that she has to bring me to school instead of staying here with you. I'm sorry that it has to be like that."
"It's not your fault," I told her. The tears were stinging my eyes again. "Don't even think it."
"I know it's not my fault." Dawn's face was inches from mine, and even in the darkness, I knew that she could see, or at least perceive, my tears. "But I'm still sorry. Sorry that I didn't choose to stay here. Sorry that I can't stay here. Especially now that you've told me all this."
"I wouldn't want you to limit yourself."
Dawn's lips were warm and soft when she kissed my cheek. "It's not about limiting myself. It's about being there for my sister."
I hugged Dawn hard then, crying into her shoulder. But her lips stayed on my cheek, not moving, just pressed there, like a gentle hand between my shoulder blades urging me to continue, to keep moving. To not give up. To be brave and strong. To be myself.
"I'm right here," Dawn murmured. Her hands moved to frame my face, her thumbs straying across my cheeks to brush away the tears. "Even when I can't be right next to you, I will be. Just let me know, and I'll get there."
I relaxed against Dawn, feeling as though a huge weight had been stripped from my soul.
"I'll get there," Dawn repeated. "Any time and every time."
And then, like we'd done so many times in seventh grade when we were friends, and eighth grade when we were stepsisters--no, sisters--and in ninth and tenth and all the grades after that, we fell asleep in each other's arms. But now I knew for certain that this was not the last time my sister and I would be so close, so connected both emotionally and physically. We would always be sisters, and when all else failed, we would always have each other.
Author: Caitlin,
amor_demi_alma
Pairing: Mary Anne / Dawn
Written for:
elisabeth_grace
in
short_takes
who wanted: their house, a disagreement (not necessarily between them), and a messed up paperback
Rating: G
Summary: Dawn's back in Stoneybrook for the summer after her senior year, having left California and her graduating class there behind. She and Mary Anne have spent a great summer together, presumably catching up and remembering the good old times in the BSC. But going off to college isn't easy for anyone, and especially not for the two stepsisters. Mary Anne's dad wants to accompany her to school, but he also wants to be with Dawn, who's leaving the exact same day ... and, of course, Sharon is facing the same dilemma with Dawn and Mary Anne. Mary Anne and Dawn will just have to remember that, even amidst the turmoil of a complex family affair like theirs, sisterly love is really all they'll need.
Author's Note: I'm so sorry this is late,
elisabeth_grace
! I was so excited that I was writing for you, and I wanted so badly to be on time! But I do have a good excuse, as you know: I moved into college myself ... which, in itself, provided me some fodder for my story. I hope this was somewhat what you were looking for! It's my first BSC fic and my first challenge, and I know it was yours, too ... so hopefully you can sympathize. :) BTW, I hope that the "family problems" can count as a disagreement. And who Mary Anne likes in this fic is meant to be up to the reader!
It was the last night before college was due to start. Dawn would be off to California with Sharon ... off to UCLA, where she'd always wanted to go. Where she could study environmentalism in the sunshine and eat all the vegetables and health food she wanted. (Ew, ew, ew!)
And me? Well, I would be staying right here in Stoneybrook, going to the local university, like I'd always known I would. Not that Dad wouldn't have let me go away if I'd wanted to--thanks to Sharon, he probably would have permitted it--but, somehow, I just wasn't ready to take that step. It was hard enough having to accept that Dawn, like everyone else, would be gone: off in California having adventures whose depths I could only begin to imagine.
"Mary Anne?" Dawn was rapping at my bedroom door. "Are you still awake in there?"
"Yeah." I reached out one hand just enough to switch on my bedside lamp. "Come in, if you want to."
The door creaked when Dawn pushed it, and then she was sitting on the edge of my bed. The light played across her cornsilk-like hair, which cascaded over my comforter as she flicked it out from beneath her.
"You nervous?" she quipped.
I turned my head away, not wanting her to see that my tears had already begun to well in my eyes. It had been all well and good for me to be a crybaby when we were all at SMS; now that we were soon-to-be college students, though, I felt that it was hardly permissible.
"Mary Anne, please don't cry." Dawn stretched out beside me, draping her arm over my waist. "It'll be fine. You'll have a great time!"
"I'm going to miss all of you," I wailed into my pillow, feeling like a first-class jerk for bawling. "And I hate that ... that neither of us has a ... a whole family to get us to college."
Dawn was silent for a moment, just letting me cry. All I could hear, besides my own ragged breathing, was the groaning and complaining of our refurbished barn out back.
"What do you mean?" Dawn asked after a while. "Do you mean that you wish your mother was alive?"
"Not just that!" I tried to find words to convey what I was feeling. "I just ... I wish your parents were together still ... and I wish that you and I could just go off to school knowing that our real parents--our original parents--were alive and in one piece and in love with each other."
Dawn nodded; I could feel her chin bumping the top of my head when she did. "I guess I see what you mean."
"And it's not just family," I added, scrambling out of bed. "It's just ... everyone!" I ran to my bookshelf, scanning it for what I wanted.
"What are you looking for?" Dawn was sitting up now, staring at me with wide eyes.
I found what I was looking for and returned to the bed, opening my yearbook from junior year as I went and paging swiftly through it. I stopped on a page headed "Now And Then" and pointed to two snapshots.
The first was the photo that Jeff had taken when us BSC-ERS were in seventh grade--the one that I had hung on the wall of my old house when Dawn had helped me redecorate right after she moved here. There were the five of us, arranged oh-so-neatly on Claudia's bed. There were Claudia, Stacey and Dawn kneeling against the wall. Claudia looked as stylish as ever. Stacey, with her fluffy perm and somewhat devilish grin, had her arm around Claud. Dawn was absolutely beaming. Her hand was on my shoulder. Kristy and I were in front of the three of them. We also had our arms around each other.
"I love that picture," Dawn mused. She extended a hand and touched the page gently, as though she could somehow soak up the friendship and camaraderie through her fingertip.
"And then look what happened." I pointed to the second shot: the one that was juxtaposed with the first.
It had been taken junior year. Kristy and I were still in front of everyone else, but we looked different.
It was remarkable, really ... all that Kristy had gone through. She'd always been so strong, such an ideas person. But being separated so drastically in age from the other kids in her family had taken its toll on her. The isolation had to catch up with her sometime. That spark in her brown eyes--that gleam that would have alerted anyone who knew Kristy at all to the fact that she was getting an idea--had vanished sometime around sophomore year. Somewhere around the time when she had started to drift away from the rest of us.
Or had we all drifted from one another?
And then there was Claudia. That "I'm-thinking-about-an-art-project" glint had somewhat left her eyes in this picture, too. And Stacey didn't look much happier.
"But Claud and Stace didn't stay sad like that, Mary Anne." Dawn knew what I was thinking. "You know that. They didn't get together until senior year. That's why they look like that. It was hard for them: hiding how they felt all that time, keeping that secret because of how Claud's parents would have reacted."
I nodded. "I know! That's what I mean!"
"What's what you mean?"
"They could do it--they could get better--so why couldn't I?"
"Mary Anne," Dawn lectured, "we've been through this before. Logan was an idiot. You can do better than him ... and you will. Just wait 'til college ... you'll see."
"It's not Logan!" Suddenly overcome, I fisted several pages of the yearbook and wrenched. Dawn gasped as the pages' connection to the binding tore, leaving nothing but jagged fragments clinging to the inside of the spine.
"Mary Anne? What ..." Dawn looked completely bewildered.
"I wanted to have the ... the kind of guts that they did!" The yearbook was still open to the page with our pictures. I traced my huge, goofy grin of five years ago, staring at the small, familiar features. And then I ran my finger across the corresponding face in the newer snapshot. I examined it: the shorter hair hanging on either side, the same eyes and nose ... the lips. Straight.
No smile on me, either.
I'd never wanted to be in this position--never wanted to be coming out to my stepsister the night before we parted for college--but there was no way out ... except to out.
"I'm gay, Dawn," I blurted, eyeing my hands because I didn't want to meet her gaze.
Dawn's hand fell on my shoulder and I almost jumped at the unexpected contact. And then her arms were around me, and she was hugging me close, smelling of soap and toothpaste and all that white-blonde hair. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, her lips buzzing against my cheek.
"I don't know," was all I could think to reply.
"Did you think I'd take it badly?"
"I thought ... I don't know ... that you'd think I was just ... just saying it because of Stacey and Claud. Or because of Logan not working out. Or because I wanted to ... to fit in or something. But I've always been ... I mean ... I always was."
"I think I knew before you did," Dawn claimed, obviously trying to break the emotional mood.
"What?" I pulled away and stared at her, bringing up my hands to dry my eyes.
"Remember Alexandra Carmody at Disney World?" Dawn smiled, visibly fighting back a fit of giggles. "The way you stared at her?"
"I did not!"
"You're blushing."
"I'm not!"
Dawn laughed gently, replacing the yearbook on my nightstand and snapping off the lamp. She climbed beneath the covers of my bed.
"What're you doing?" I was surprised by her action.
"Staying with you."
"Why?"
"So you'll believe me when I tell you that I'll always be here for you."
"I know you will."
"I don't care how messed up my family is, Mary Anne." Dawn was drawing the blankets over me as I climbed back into bed beside her. "I don't care that my dad's all stuck in a cloud with stupid Carol and doesn't even care that I'm moving to UCLA. I don't care that Mom's still mad at him for it, even though there's really no use in her taking the time to even think about it." Dawn pulled me in against her, wrapping her arms around my back. "But I know that it's hard for you. Sharon's the only mom you've ever known, and she feels that she has to bring me to school instead of staying here with you. I'm sorry that it has to be like that."
"It's not your fault," I told her. The tears were stinging my eyes again. "Don't even think it."
"I know it's not my fault." Dawn's face was inches from mine, and even in the darkness, I knew that she could see, or at least perceive, my tears. "But I'm still sorry. Sorry that I didn't choose to stay here. Sorry that I can't stay here. Especially now that you've told me all this."
"I wouldn't want you to limit yourself."
Dawn's lips were warm and soft when she kissed my cheek. "It's not about limiting myself. It's about being there for my sister."
I hugged Dawn hard then, crying into her shoulder. But her lips stayed on my cheek, not moving, just pressed there, like a gentle hand between my shoulder blades urging me to continue, to keep moving. To not give up. To be brave and strong. To be myself.
"I'm right here," Dawn murmured. Her hands moved to frame my face, her thumbs straying across my cheeks to brush away the tears. "Even when I can't be right next to you, I will be. Just let me know, and I'll get there."
I relaxed against Dawn, feeling as though a huge weight had been stripped from my soul.
"I'll get there," Dawn repeated. "Any time and every time."
And then, like we'd done so many times in seventh grade when we were friends, and eighth grade when we were stepsisters--no, sisters--and in ninth and tenth and all the grades after that, we fell asleep in each other's arms. But now I knew for certain that this was not the last time my sister and I would be so close, so connected both emotionally and physically. We would always be sisters, and when all else failed, we would always have each other.