fic!
It got done!
Title: Only to survive.
Author: Madeline (sunshine_queen)
For: thislittlelady
Many thanks to: agent_nica, for the much-needed beta-ing.
Title taken from Michael Palmer’s poem “If not, not.”
I was there
cut in half, only to
survive.
The character you most want resurrected: Jack
Up to three (3) other elements you'd like your story to contain:
Sydney/Jack reunion bonding, Jack/Jack (and/or Isabelle) (aww),
Jack/Vaughn reunion bonding ... sortof. And if you really want to
know, I struggled with my conscience for the longest time deciding
between Jack and Nadia. :( Rounds of WowWrongBadHot, anyone? ;)
It’s cloudy the day that Uncle Dixon comes to the house without a smile, and the ocean looks like scraps of steel moving together, loud and angry. Isabelle is trying to do her homework, but Jack keeps running in to bother her because he’s bored and wants to go outside and he’s only a little boy and likes the idea of getting sandy and wet.
Uncle Dixon comes in the way he always does, through the sand and the back door, as though his arrival were a secret. He sometimes comes with presents and always with a smile, but today he brings neither, and Isabelle knows better than to ask. Jack’s too little to understand and tugs at him, whining about presents, and though Isabelle wants to pinch him to make him be quiet, her mother’s expression frightens her.
Belle, she says softly, after Uncle Dixon has given them hugs that are more preoccupied than usual, please take your brother into your room, and Isabelle can see that now is not the time to remind her that she has to do a whole book report on Charlotte’s Web for tomorrow. When she’s dragging Jack by the hand to her room, she passes her father, who’s coming out. He gives her a smile, but she can see that something’s not right with him either.
Jack is not to be trusted in her room, which is why she never lets him in there to begin with, because he likes to play with the little glass figurines Aunt Rachel sends her for her birthday. He almost broke her favorite, the pink glass unicorn, last week, and Isabelle had yelled at him until he’d cried for Mama and run off. Now he goes straight for them again, but she guides him away from them and sits him down on her bed with a book and offers to read to him.
As she reads, she listens to the low hum of her parents’ voices and Uncle Dixon’s. She thinks they’re in the study, but they might even be outside on the porch, because she can’t make out a single word they’re saying. The rain starts after a loud crash of thunder, and Jack flinches into her.
It was unexpected, when he saw sunlight.
For one, he honestly hadn’t been expecting to open his eyes again at all. Now that he had, he thought he should be in excruciating pain, and complete darkness. Instead, he felt as if he gotten a good night’s sleep, and had the odd thought that he needed a shower.
He knew where he was, and why he was there, but he didn’t understand why he was alive, and whole, and why he was able to move. The debris had been cleared from around him, and he could see a path forged through the rubble, towards the door, where sunlight was shyly flowing.
He sat up carefully, testing limbs that felt heavy with sleep. He turned carefully to face behind him, where the rubble was highest, to where he had seen Sloane last. He could just make out a shadow, slight and careful, and he drew his gun.
The figure approached, the shadow growing longer as she came into the light, and her smile was radiant in spite of her obvious fatigue. “Hello, Jack.”
Uncle Dixon does not stay for dinner, and instead of them all eating together like they usually do, her father makes them macaroni and cheese and sits with them at the table without a plate. Jack is unusually quiet and pushes his pasta around, and he doesn’t even try to make a mess. Her mother is in her room with the door closed, and she doesn’t even come out to help Jack get ready for bed. Instead, her father brings him in to say goodnight and when they come back out, Jack is upset. While her father is trying to get Jack settled, Isabelle crept into her mother’s room.
The blinds are drawn, and the light beside her father’s side of the bed is on the lowest setting. Her mother is curled up under the blankets, and Isabelle is struck so quickly with fear that she forgets how hard she tried to be quiet when she entered and runs over to her mother to burrow next to her.
Her mother turns in surprise and puts her arms around her, saying her name softly and questioningly as Isabelle nestles closer. Mommy, she calls her, even though she doesn’t call her that anymore, because it’s too babyish, Mommy, what’s the matter? Her mother kisses her hair and pets her face and tells her that everything’s okay and that Mommy’s just a little overwhelmed and needs to think. Does she know what overwhelmed is? Isabelle nods, and her mother rubs her back. Everything’s going to be okay, she says, don’t worry.
After a little while she feels better, so she gets up and goes to finish her homework. In her bedroom she has a shelf of framed pictures of her family and friends and birthdays and the beach and everyone and everything she loves. On either end of the shelf there are two pictures that are special, for there are very few other pictures like these.
On the left, there is a picture of her as a baby with her grandfather, taken without his knowledge. Isabelle likes it because she thinks he has a very nice face and it looks like he liked her a lot. Her mother always tells her he loved her, but Isabelle can’t remember that, so she relies on the look in the photograph: she, in a yellow dress, reaching for her grandfather’s face as he smiles at her.
On the right, she is with her mother’s sister, obviously posed. Isabelle likes it because her aunt’s smile is wide and even and happy, the kind of happy that looks real. Her aunt looked both like her mother and completely different, but Isabelle is proud to have had such a pretty aunt, especially one that held her so close, her baby cheek pressed to hers. Her mother says that her aunt adored her, and she seems even sadder when she talks about her than when she talks about her father, because Isabelle was only ever with her aunt for a few days. There are a few other pictures, but this one is best.
When she woke up, it felt as though she was under too many blankets in her bed at home, the sun streaming in its late morning glory, making her almost uncomfortably warm. Her whole body tingled as though she had slept in some contortion that had led to a lack of circulation in every extremity, and she inhaled as though she had held her breath in her sleep. Her skin felt dry and tight, and the light was painful when she opened her eyes. When she moved, her bones creaked, as if due to disuse, and she had to swallow three times before gathering the voice to ask aloud where she was.
You are safe, the voice said, you have been chosen. It was familiar but not recognizable, and something about it made her skin crawl, because ‘chosen’ did not necessarily mean things to be happy about.
She was on an altar, and next to her head was a near-emptied chalice, droplets gleaming on its rim that matched the dull taste on her tongue. Red liquid an inch deep filled the bottom, and she knew that it would be useful. The platform was warm under the thin soles of her slippers, and she felt vaguely ridiculous in a black dress more suitable for a cocktail party.
She tiptoed towards the light, leaving footprints in the sand, and she felt self-conscious about the trail she was leaving. When she reached the doorway, she saw the doorway to the surface, and another, longer hallway, which was the way she is drawn, the chalice held level to her waist.
The next room had the rasping of labored breathing, but Nadia stopped when she saw the still form nearest the entrance. She knew who the wheezing belonged to, but felt no pity, because there was a sharp twinge in her throat and the man she knelt next to had helped her, always. She parted his lips and lifted his head, and the contents of the goblet were given to someone worthy.
Isabelle’s mother dresses in a suit the next day, her jacket tailored severely and her hair completely straight. The sound of her heels clipping the floor sharply is alien as she fixes breakfast. Jack doesn’t like the idea of her leaving, and whines and holds on to her skirt. Her mother coddles him for the first few times, but by the time they get into the car to take Isabelle to school and Jack to the babysitters’, she has had enough and tells Jack harshly to stop whining. When Isabelle gets out of the car, Jack is crying and her mother is apologizing, wishing Isabelle a good day with a kiss and driving away all at the same time.
She’s distracted during science, thinking about her mother in her suit going to the office where Uncle Dixon works. When she goes to visit him she sometimes comes home and needs to pack. Uncle Dixon likes to send her on business trips because she’s the best at what she does. Sometimes he sends both her parents, and Aunt Rachel stays with them, or Uncle Dixon’s daughter Robin, and though Isabelle loves them both and has fun with them, she’d rather have her mother home.
At lunch she eats her tuna fish sandwich and all her carrots, and even though her best friend offers to share the package of cupcakes her mother always puts in her lunchbox, Isabelle says no and instead bites into her green grapes thoughtfully.
They turn in their book reports after lunch, and Isabelle is proud to put her report on top of the stack of work on her teacher’s desk. As she sits down and opens her desk to take out her English notebook, the PA crackles to life, asking if Mrs. Gutierrez could please send Isabelle Vaughn to the office, as she was going home.
There’s only an hour left of school, and her mother would have reminded her if she was being picked up early before she dropped her off, so Isabelle walks to the front office, completely bewildered. When she gets there, her father was waiting, and he takes her hand and says, Something wonderful has happened.
“Do you know what has happened?”
“No. Do you?”
He got up slowly, testing his limbs. He doesn’t trust them. “No.” He gives her a hard look before dropping his gaze to look at their way out. “You were dead.”
“So were you.”
“But you were-” He shook his head, obviously realizing that there was no real explanation to be found. “Did you see him?”
She nodded, then brushed at the smear of dirt near her hem. “He’s just talking to himself. It was like he couldn’t see me.”
He could just make out his voice, deranged mumblings. He turned back to her. “Do you remember what happened?”
She shook her head and held up a hand when he opened his mouth to explain. “I- I don’t really think I want to know.” She shrugged a little. “I know he was responsible and… I just don’t want the details. Not now. What I want to know is how this happened.”
He shook his head too. “I don’t know.”
She considered this, and the silence stretched between them. She looks up, a swath of sunlight cutting across her face and highlighting her mouth. “Maybe we shouldn’t question that, either.”
At home, Isabelle’s mother is cleaning with a frantic intensity, but her eyes shine and she hugs Isabelle extra tight. It’s a miracle, a surprise, and she’ll find out tomorrow what it is. Isabelle knows that this wonderful thing that has happened is life altering, but no more so than when she protests that tomorrow is a school day. Her mother has always been very serious about school and attendance before, especially since she herself is a professor.
Well, her mother says, one absence isn’t going to hurt anything. It’s very important I have you home tomorrow, Isabelle. The weight of tomorrow’s importance hits Isabelle firmly as she’s able to stow her backpack away in her bedroom and is allowed to sit down and watch an hour of television.
Jack is feeding off his mother’s excitement and is running around being loud. He talks to himself as he plays with his toys, the blocks and cars and trains, before getting up with an airplane to run around making sound effects. It irritates her, but she’s afraid that yelling at him will ruin her mother’s good mood. Every few minutes he runs over to his mother and tugs at her, whining for her to play with him. It’s after the fifth time that Isabelle sees that under her mother’s happiness there is a nervous energy.
Dinner is unusually quiet, because her parents are obviously waiting until she and Jack are asleep to discuss things, and Isabelle is preoccupied with the mysterious events of the day and tomorrow. Jack is too busy eating to talk, except for the occasional random request.
When her mother puts her to bed, she pets Isabelle’s hair away from her face. Tomorrow is going to be so exciting, she says, kissing her cheeks, you’re going to love the surprise.
Isabelle dreams of surprises, of parties and cakes and people jumping out of boxes: her school friends, friends of her parents, finally, her own family. Her mother jumps out, followed by her father holding Jack. Then, from a larger, red box, her grandfather and aunt jump out. Surprise, they yell, like the others, and their smiles are wide.
“We’ll have to hike. There’s a town ten miles south of here, we can contact our people.”
She nodded, because he was right, but the journey would be difficult without supplies. “Should we wait until dark?”
“We’ll have to. We should hit a stream in about three miles.”
They left at dusk, the ramblings of her father growing softer and softer the further she walked, until she could no longer remember what they sounded like. Her companion’s steps were long and the terrain was difficult. Her shoes were unsuitable, and she slipped more than once, until it seemed logical for him to maintain a firm hold on her elbow to support her. She resented this at first, and then came to appreciate it.
The stream glowed in the moonlight, and he told her quietly that the water was safe to drink. She did so gratefully, and he noticed the play of the muscles in her throat, and the tight gleaming scar that arched. He drank the water to distract himself, noticing that she also washed her face and hands as best she could, and smoothed back her hair.
When he thought that they had rested long enough, he stood and offered a hand to help her. She took it and held it until they reached the town. He had a contact there (she wasn’t surprised; of course he did.) and when he called their people, he merely said, “This is Jack Bristow.”
When Isabelle awoke, she was disappointed. The surprise had not arrived yet. At the breakfast table her mother was in her pajamas, beaming happily, but still undressed, which meant the surprise wasn’t coming anytime soon. Jack wanted to go swimming, but their mother said no, something she rarely did, and Jack sulked and knocked over his glass of orange juice. The smile never left her mother’s face, and she hummed while wiping it up.
Isabelle starts a new book and feels a certain measure of pride that she is at home reading while her classmates are sitting through math. She’s read four chapters before her mother calls her to lunch, and Isabelle thinks with exasperation that the surprise is never going to come. Her mother fidgets as she watches Isabelle and Jack eat, tucking her hair back and playing with silverware, not eating herself.
Afterwards, she tells them to go play, and after cleaning up, she goes into her bedroom, and Isabelle knows, with an excited flutter in her stomach, that the surprise must be getting closer. She tries to read but can’t focus, and instead gives up and watches her brother, who is completely oblivious to the fact that some wonderful surprise is going to happen very soon.
Her mother comes out looking beautiful. She has a new dress on, and high heels, and her hair is straight and she smells wonderful. Jack’s response is to get up and hurl himself at her legs, but Isabelle just smiles with pride. Her mother motions her over, and embraces both of her children before telling them that it’s very, very important that they both stay in Isabelle’s room for a little while, at least until Mama calls them out.
Isabelle tries to hide the devastation on her face as she takes Jack’s hand and goes into her room. All this excitement for nothing! A surprise for her mother, and not for her. All she gets to do is watch Jack, she thinks bitterly, and she feels almost like crying.
Jack’s at the window, almost ready to start rearranging some of her trophies, when suddenly he strains towards the window. Belle, he calls, Belle, ’s Uncle Dixon!
All this excitement about another visit from Uncle Dixon? Isabelle goes to the window, and she can see the familiar form of her uncle walking towards them. This time, however, instead of carrying packages or bringing his children, there are two people with him- a man and a woman.
Isabelle knows somehow that they are the surprise.
Sydney does not look very different, considering how long it’s been, and the anticipation on her face is almost painful to see.
She has the restraint to keep herself there, clutching at her husband’s hand, until they all climb up the stairs. Sydney looks between the two- her father and her sister, returned like miracles- and leaps to hug them both, her arms around them fiercely and her face between her father’s broad shoulders and her sister’s slim ones.
She starts to cry, and Nadia does too, out of sympathy, because Dixon has explained things to them. “I missed you so much,” Sydney says, moving to hug her sister fully. “It was horrible without you.”
Nadia holds her sister close, closing her eyes against the sun that glares off the ocean and the people that surround them.
Sydney’s guilt bubbles over. “I’m so sorry, Nadia, it shouldn’t have happened. I- I should’ve been able to do something.”
“Sydney,” she says, rubbing her back. “I’m here now. It’s all right.” She smiles for her sister, to show her that she means it, and Sydney returns the gesture.
“So much has happened…”
“You can tell me everything,” Nadia says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Isabelle can just make out the sound of voices on the porch from her bedroom window, but try as she might, she can’t see far enough to get a good look at the visitors.
The mystery surrounding their appearance doesn’t bother Jack, who is happy with a box of crayons and a coloring book on the floor. Leaving her room would be a gamble: she would have to leave Jack behind, because he would be too loud, and if her parents caught her, they would most likely punish her. Isabelle decides to go through with it anyway, telling her brother that she’s going to get them something to drink and not to make a mess.
She walks out of her room calmly and confidently, down the hall and into the dining room. Moving into the living room is where the danger starts- the windows are big and the curtains are pulled back. When she moves in, she sees that the two closest to her father are open. Isabelle weighs her options quickly, and decides to dash as quietly as possible to hide behind the curtains. Her father never turns.
From her position, she can see Uncle Dixon standing off to the side by her father, and her mother facing away from her, next to the visitors near the steps. She’s pulling away from the woman, who bears a striking resemblance to her aunt. When her mother moves to the side to hug the man, Isabelle realizes that her earlier inkling was correct, because she has the same smile, big and honest.
She can’t hear what’s being said, but between the grip the mother has on him and the familiarity of his face, Isabelle just knows that the man is her grandfather. He holds her mother close and strokes her hair, just like Isabelle’s own father would do when comforting her.
Curiosity sated, Isabelle steps back from the window and prepares to return to her room when her aunt catches her eye. Oh, Sydney, she says, it’s Isabelle, and she says her name with such reverence that Isabelle is completely convinced that it’s her aunt.
Her father turns and sees her in the window, and she’s relieved at his lack of anger. Isabelle, he says through the window, go get your brother and bring him out here.
Hours later, Jack has met their grandfather and has exclaimed loudly about their shared name, and has fallen asleep on his mother’s lap. Their aunt Nadia is just like her mother has always described her, sweet and animated, and she’s interested in everything Jack and Isabelle tell her.
Isabelle has never seen her mother happier. Her eyes have a different light to them, and for a good part of the afternoon and evening she keeps a hand on her sister or father, like she wants to make sure they were real. Occasionally a tear would slip out, and she would wipe it away and say she was silly for crying.
Her grandfather- Grandpa, Isabelle has been instructed to call him, and a small smile shows when she says it- is interested in his grandchildren, and answers their questions, but keeps an eye on his daughter. “You did a good job,” he said gruffly to her father, patting his shoulder in the hall off the dining room, and her mother had beamed like the sun at overhearing it.
At bedtime, Isabelle kisses her family goodnight and gets put to bed by her mother, who can’t stop smiling. “Mom,” she asks, “How could Grandpa and Aunt Nadia have come back to us?”
“I don’t know,” her mother says, “but maybe you shouldn’t question miracles.”
Title: Only to survive.
Author: Madeline (sunshine_queen)
For: thislittlelady
Many thanks to: agent_nica, for the much-needed beta-ing.
Title taken from Michael Palmer’s poem “If not, not.”
I was there
cut in half, only to
survive.
The character you most want resurrected: Jack
Up to three (3) other elements you'd like your story to contain:
Sydney/Jack reunion bonding, Jack/Jack (and/or Isabelle) (aww),
Jack/Vaughn reunion bonding ... sortof. And if you really want to
know, I struggled with my conscience for the longest time deciding
between Jack and Nadia. :( Rounds of WowWrongBadHot, anyone? ;)
It’s cloudy the day that Uncle Dixon comes to the house without a smile, and the ocean looks like scraps of steel moving together, loud and angry. Isabelle is trying to do her homework, but Jack keeps running in to bother her because he’s bored and wants to go outside and he’s only a little boy and likes the idea of getting sandy and wet.
Uncle Dixon comes in the way he always does, through the sand and the back door, as though his arrival were a secret. He sometimes comes with presents and always with a smile, but today he brings neither, and Isabelle knows better than to ask. Jack’s too little to understand and tugs at him, whining about presents, and though Isabelle wants to pinch him to make him be quiet, her mother’s expression frightens her.
Belle, she says softly, after Uncle Dixon has given them hugs that are more preoccupied than usual, please take your brother into your room, and Isabelle can see that now is not the time to remind her that she has to do a whole book report on Charlotte’s Web for tomorrow. When she’s dragging Jack by the hand to her room, she passes her father, who’s coming out. He gives her a smile, but she can see that something’s not right with him either.
Jack is not to be trusted in her room, which is why she never lets him in there to begin with, because he likes to play with the little glass figurines Aunt Rachel sends her for her birthday. He almost broke her favorite, the pink glass unicorn, last week, and Isabelle had yelled at him until he’d cried for Mama and run off. Now he goes straight for them again, but she guides him away from them and sits him down on her bed with a book and offers to read to him.
As she reads, she listens to the low hum of her parents’ voices and Uncle Dixon’s. She thinks they’re in the study, but they might even be outside on the porch, because she can’t make out a single word they’re saying. The rain starts after a loud crash of thunder, and Jack flinches into her.
It was unexpected, when he saw sunlight.
For one, he honestly hadn’t been expecting to open his eyes again at all. Now that he had, he thought he should be in excruciating pain, and complete darkness. Instead, he felt as if he gotten a good night’s sleep, and had the odd thought that he needed a shower.
He knew where he was, and why he was there, but he didn’t understand why he was alive, and whole, and why he was able to move. The debris had been cleared from around him, and he could see a path forged through the rubble, towards the door, where sunlight was shyly flowing.
He sat up carefully, testing limbs that felt heavy with sleep. He turned carefully to face behind him, where the rubble was highest, to where he had seen Sloane last. He could just make out a shadow, slight and careful, and he drew his gun.
The figure approached, the shadow growing longer as she came into the light, and her smile was radiant in spite of her obvious fatigue. “Hello, Jack.”
Uncle Dixon does not stay for dinner, and instead of them all eating together like they usually do, her father makes them macaroni and cheese and sits with them at the table without a plate. Jack is unusually quiet and pushes his pasta around, and he doesn’t even try to make a mess. Her mother is in her room with the door closed, and she doesn’t even come out to help Jack get ready for bed. Instead, her father brings him in to say goodnight and when they come back out, Jack is upset. While her father is trying to get Jack settled, Isabelle crept into her mother’s room.
The blinds are drawn, and the light beside her father’s side of the bed is on the lowest setting. Her mother is curled up under the blankets, and Isabelle is struck so quickly with fear that she forgets how hard she tried to be quiet when she entered and runs over to her mother to burrow next to her.
Her mother turns in surprise and puts her arms around her, saying her name softly and questioningly as Isabelle nestles closer. Mommy, she calls her, even though she doesn’t call her that anymore, because it’s too babyish, Mommy, what’s the matter? Her mother kisses her hair and pets her face and tells her that everything’s okay and that Mommy’s just a little overwhelmed and needs to think. Does she know what overwhelmed is? Isabelle nods, and her mother rubs her back. Everything’s going to be okay, she says, don’t worry.
After a little while she feels better, so she gets up and goes to finish her homework. In her bedroom she has a shelf of framed pictures of her family and friends and birthdays and the beach and everyone and everything she loves. On either end of the shelf there are two pictures that are special, for there are very few other pictures like these.
On the left, there is a picture of her as a baby with her grandfather, taken without his knowledge. Isabelle likes it because she thinks he has a very nice face and it looks like he liked her a lot. Her mother always tells her he loved her, but Isabelle can’t remember that, so she relies on the look in the photograph: she, in a yellow dress, reaching for her grandfather’s face as he smiles at her.
On the right, she is with her mother’s sister, obviously posed. Isabelle likes it because her aunt’s smile is wide and even and happy, the kind of happy that looks real. Her aunt looked both like her mother and completely different, but Isabelle is proud to have had such a pretty aunt, especially one that held her so close, her baby cheek pressed to hers. Her mother says that her aunt adored her, and she seems even sadder when she talks about her than when she talks about her father, because Isabelle was only ever with her aunt for a few days. There are a few other pictures, but this one is best.
When she woke up, it felt as though she was under too many blankets in her bed at home, the sun streaming in its late morning glory, making her almost uncomfortably warm. Her whole body tingled as though she had slept in some contortion that had led to a lack of circulation in every extremity, and she inhaled as though she had held her breath in her sleep. Her skin felt dry and tight, and the light was painful when she opened her eyes. When she moved, her bones creaked, as if due to disuse, and she had to swallow three times before gathering the voice to ask aloud where she was.
You are safe, the voice said, you have been chosen. It was familiar but not recognizable, and something about it made her skin crawl, because ‘chosen’ did not necessarily mean things to be happy about.
She was on an altar, and next to her head was a near-emptied chalice, droplets gleaming on its rim that matched the dull taste on her tongue. Red liquid an inch deep filled the bottom, and she knew that it would be useful. The platform was warm under the thin soles of her slippers, and she felt vaguely ridiculous in a black dress more suitable for a cocktail party.
She tiptoed towards the light, leaving footprints in the sand, and she felt self-conscious about the trail she was leaving. When she reached the doorway, she saw the doorway to the surface, and another, longer hallway, which was the way she is drawn, the chalice held level to her waist.
The next room had the rasping of labored breathing, but Nadia stopped when she saw the still form nearest the entrance. She knew who the wheezing belonged to, but felt no pity, because there was a sharp twinge in her throat and the man she knelt next to had helped her, always. She parted his lips and lifted his head, and the contents of the goblet were given to someone worthy.
Isabelle’s mother dresses in a suit the next day, her jacket tailored severely and her hair completely straight. The sound of her heels clipping the floor sharply is alien as she fixes breakfast. Jack doesn’t like the idea of her leaving, and whines and holds on to her skirt. Her mother coddles him for the first few times, but by the time they get into the car to take Isabelle to school and Jack to the babysitters’, she has had enough and tells Jack harshly to stop whining. When Isabelle gets out of the car, Jack is crying and her mother is apologizing, wishing Isabelle a good day with a kiss and driving away all at the same time.
She’s distracted during science, thinking about her mother in her suit going to the office where Uncle Dixon works. When she goes to visit him she sometimes comes home and needs to pack. Uncle Dixon likes to send her on business trips because she’s the best at what she does. Sometimes he sends both her parents, and Aunt Rachel stays with them, or Uncle Dixon’s daughter Robin, and though Isabelle loves them both and has fun with them, she’d rather have her mother home.
At lunch she eats her tuna fish sandwich and all her carrots, and even though her best friend offers to share the package of cupcakes her mother always puts in her lunchbox, Isabelle says no and instead bites into her green grapes thoughtfully.
They turn in their book reports after lunch, and Isabelle is proud to put her report on top of the stack of work on her teacher’s desk. As she sits down and opens her desk to take out her English notebook, the PA crackles to life, asking if Mrs. Gutierrez could please send Isabelle Vaughn to the office, as she was going home.
There’s only an hour left of school, and her mother would have reminded her if she was being picked up early before she dropped her off, so Isabelle walks to the front office, completely bewildered. When she gets there, her father was waiting, and he takes her hand and says, Something wonderful has happened.
“Do you know what has happened?”
“No. Do you?”
He got up slowly, testing his limbs. He doesn’t trust them. “No.” He gives her a hard look before dropping his gaze to look at their way out. “You were dead.”
“So were you.”
“But you were-” He shook his head, obviously realizing that there was no real explanation to be found. “Did you see him?”
She nodded, then brushed at the smear of dirt near her hem. “He’s just talking to himself. It was like he couldn’t see me.”
He could just make out his voice, deranged mumblings. He turned back to her. “Do you remember what happened?”
She shook her head and held up a hand when he opened his mouth to explain. “I- I don’t really think I want to know.” She shrugged a little. “I know he was responsible and… I just don’t want the details. Not now. What I want to know is how this happened.”
He shook his head too. “I don’t know.”
She considered this, and the silence stretched between them. She looks up, a swath of sunlight cutting across her face and highlighting her mouth. “Maybe we shouldn’t question that, either.”
At home, Isabelle’s mother is cleaning with a frantic intensity, but her eyes shine and she hugs Isabelle extra tight. It’s a miracle, a surprise, and she’ll find out tomorrow what it is. Isabelle knows that this wonderful thing that has happened is life altering, but no more so than when she protests that tomorrow is a school day. Her mother has always been very serious about school and attendance before, especially since she herself is a professor.
Well, her mother says, one absence isn’t going to hurt anything. It’s very important I have you home tomorrow, Isabelle. The weight of tomorrow’s importance hits Isabelle firmly as she’s able to stow her backpack away in her bedroom and is allowed to sit down and watch an hour of television.
Jack is feeding off his mother’s excitement and is running around being loud. He talks to himself as he plays with his toys, the blocks and cars and trains, before getting up with an airplane to run around making sound effects. It irritates her, but she’s afraid that yelling at him will ruin her mother’s good mood. Every few minutes he runs over to his mother and tugs at her, whining for her to play with him. It’s after the fifth time that Isabelle sees that under her mother’s happiness there is a nervous energy.
Dinner is unusually quiet, because her parents are obviously waiting until she and Jack are asleep to discuss things, and Isabelle is preoccupied with the mysterious events of the day and tomorrow. Jack is too busy eating to talk, except for the occasional random request.
When her mother puts her to bed, she pets Isabelle’s hair away from her face. Tomorrow is going to be so exciting, she says, kissing her cheeks, you’re going to love the surprise.
Isabelle dreams of surprises, of parties and cakes and people jumping out of boxes: her school friends, friends of her parents, finally, her own family. Her mother jumps out, followed by her father holding Jack. Then, from a larger, red box, her grandfather and aunt jump out. Surprise, they yell, like the others, and their smiles are wide.
“We’ll have to hike. There’s a town ten miles south of here, we can contact our people.”
She nodded, because he was right, but the journey would be difficult without supplies. “Should we wait until dark?”
“We’ll have to. We should hit a stream in about three miles.”
They left at dusk, the ramblings of her father growing softer and softer the further she walked, until she could no longer remember what they sounded like. Her companion’s steps were long and the terrain was difficult. Her shoes were unsuitable, and she slipped more than once, until it seemed logical for him to maintain a firm hold on her elbow to support her. She resented this at first, and then came to appreciate it.
The stream glowed in the moonlight, and he told her quietly that the water was safe to drink. She did so gratefully, and he noticed the play of the muscles in her throat, and the tight gleaming scar that arched. He drank the water to distract himself, noticing that she also washed her face and hands as best she could, and smoothed back her hair.
When he thought that they had rested long enough, he stood and offered a hand to help her. She took it and held it until they reached the town. He had a contact there (she wasn’t surprised; of course he did.) and when he called their people, he merely said, “This is Jack Bristow.”
When Isabelle awoke, she was disappointed. The surprise had not arrived yet. At the breakfast table her mother was in her pajamas, beaming happily, but still undressed, which meant the surprise wasn’t coming anytime soon. Jack wanted to go swimming, but their mother said no, something she rarely did, and Jack sulked and knocked over his glass of orange juice. The smile never left her mother’s face, and she hummed while wiping it up.
Isabelle starts a new book and feels a certain measure of pride that she is at home reading while her classmates are sitting through math. She’s read four chapters before her mother calls her to lunch, and Isabelle thinks with exasperation that the surprise is never going to come. Her mother fidgets as she watches Isabelle and Jack eat, tucking her hair back and playing with silverware, not eating herself.
Afterwards, she tells them to go play, and after cleaning up, she goes into her bedroom, and Isabelle knows, with an excited flutter in her stomach, that the surprise must be getting closer. She tries to read but can’t focus, and instead gives up and watches her brother, who is completely oblivious to the fact that some wonderful surprise is going to happen very soon.
Her mother comes out looking beautiful. She has a new dress on, and high heels, and her hair is straight and she smells wonderful. Jack’s response is to get up and hurl himself at her legs, but Isabelle just smiles with pride. Her mother motions her over, and embraces both of her children before telling them that it’s very, very important that they both stay in Isabelle’s room for a little while, at least until Mama calls them out.
Isabelle tries to hide the devastation on her face as she takes Jack’s hand and goes into her room. All this excitement for nothing! A surprise for her mother, and not for her. All she gets to do is watch Jack, she thinks bitterly, and she feels almost like crying.
Jack’s at the window, almost ready to start rearranging some of her trophies, when suddenly he strains towards the window. Belle, he calls, Belle, ’s Uncle Dixon!
All this excitement about another visit from Uncle Dixon? Isabelle goes to the window, and she can see the familiar form of her uncle walking towards them. This time, however, instead of carrying packages or bringing his children, there are two people with him- a man and a woman.
Isabelle knows somehow that they are the surprise.
Sydney does not look very different, considering how long it’s been, and the anticipation on her face is almost painful to see.
She has the restraint to keep herself there, clutching at her husband’s hand, until they all climb up the stairs. Sydney looks between the two- her father and her sister, returned like miracles- and leaps to hug them both, her arms around them fiercely and her face between her father’s broad shoulders and her sister’s slim ones.
She starts to cry, and Nadia does too, out of sympathy, because Dixon has explained things to them. “I missed you so much,” Sydney says, moving to hug her sister fully. “It was horrible without you.”
Nadia holds her sister close, closing her eyes against the sun that glares off the ocean and the people that surround them.
Sydney’s guilt bubbles over. “I’m so sorry, Nadia, it shouldn’t have happened. I- I should’ve been able to do something.”
“Sydney,” she says, rubbing her back. “I’m here now. It’s all right.” She smiles for her sister, to show her that she means it, and Sydney returns the gesture.
“So much has happened…”
“You can tell me everything,” Nadia says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Isabelle can just make out the sound of voices on the porch from her bedroom window, but try as she might, she can’t see far enough to get a good look at the visitors.
The mystery surrounding their appearance doesn’t bother Jack, who is happy with a box of crayons and a coloring book on the floor. Leaving her room would be a gamble: she would have to leave Jack behind, because he would be too loud, and if her parents caught her, they would most likely punish her. Isabelle decides to go through with it anyway, telling her brother that she’s going to get them something to drink and not to make a mess.
She walks out of her room calmly and confidently, down the hall and into the dining room. Moving into the living room is where the danger starts- the windows are big and the curtains are pulled back. When she moves in, she sees that the two closest to her father are open. Isabelle weighs her options quickly, and decides to dash as quietly as possible to hide behind the curtains. Her father never turns.
From her position, she can see Uncle Dixon standing off to the side by her father, and her mother facing away from her, next to the visitors near the steps. She’s pulling away from the woman, who bears a striking resemblance to her aunt. When her mother moves to the side to hug the man, Isabelle realizes that her earlier inkling was correct, because she has the same smile, big and honest.
She can’t hear what’s being said, but between the grip the mother has on him and the familiarity of his face, Isabelle just knows that the man is her grandfather. He holds her mother close and strokes her hair, just like Isabelle’s own father would do when comforting her.
Curiosity sated, Isabelle steps back from the window and prepares to return to her room when her aunt catches her eye. Oh, Sydney, she says, it’s Isabelle, and she says her name with such reverence that Isabelle is completely convinced that it’s her aunt.
Her father turns and sees her in the window, and she’s relieved at his lack of anger. Isabelle, he says through the window, go get your brother and bring him out here.
Hours later, Jack has met their grandfather and has exclaimed loudly about their shared name, and has fallen asleep on his mother’s lap. Their aunt Nadia is just like her mother has always described her, sweet and animated, and she’s interested in everything Jack and Isabelle tell her.
Isabelle has never seen her mother happier. Her eyes have a different light to them, and for a good part of the afternoon and evening she keeps a hand on her sister or father, like she wants to make sure they were real. Occasionally a tear would slip out, and she would wipe it away and say she was silly for crying.
Her grandfather- Grandpa, Isabelle has been instructed to call him, and a small smile shows when she says it- is interested in his grandchildren, and answers their questions, but keeps an eye on his daughter. “You did a good job,” he said gruffly to her father, patting his shoulder in the hall off the dining room, and her mother had beamed like the sun at overhearing it.
At bedtime, Isabelle kisses her family goodnight and gets put to bed by her mother, who can’t stop smiling. “Mom,” she asks, “How could Grandpa and Aunt Nadia have come back to us?”
“I don’t know,” her mother says, “but maybe you shouldn’t question miracles.”