Rocked From The Sky By A Terrible Storm
Title: Rocked From The Sky By A Terrible Storm
Famdon: Manifest
Characters: Olive, Grace. Mentions of Ben, Cal, Michaela.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for the pilot episode
Summary: The missing five years between Flight 828's departure and landing, as seen through the eyes of Olive Stone.
There was a movie Olive had never liked when she was younger; Flight of the Navigator. From what she remembered, there was some kid who’d been abducted by aliens or something and come back to find that while he hadn’t aged a day, his family had all aged eight years. She was fuzzy on the details; someone had put it on at a sleepover and she’d ended up falling asleep in the middle of it, but she remembered that much.
Olive had never imagined at the time how close that stupid movie was going to come to her life.
For a long time after Flight 828 disappeared, Olive would hear Grace crying in her room every night. One time, she’d walked in on Grace cutting up one of Ben’s suits, yelling and crying about how it was all his fault, because if he hadn’t been such a God-awful father, never spending enough time with his kids, Cal wouldn’t have been so desperate to spend time with him that he’d asked to go on the later flight, depriving her of the last few months with Cal. Olive had known that she could never tell her mother that there was a part of her at the time that had been relieved that Cal had been on the later flight with their dad. It had felt like their whole lives had revolved around Cal’s treatment for the last few months, and of course she loved her twin, couldn’t imagine at the time what life would be like without him. But there were times when Olive just wanted some attention for herself, to be able to talk about things like fights she’d had with her friends without feeling like she was taking up her parents’ time over something stupid and unimportant, to be able to talk about girl stuff, to spend some quality time with her parents rather than be left with either her grandparents or Aunt Michaela while they were at yet another clinic with Cal. Another part of her was ashamed that she’d thought that, knew that when they actually got home she’d be glad to see Cal again, but at that time she just wanted to spend some time alone with her mother.
No one at that time had yet told the young Olive to be careful what she wished for.
For a long time, Olive was afraid that one day her mother would disappear on her too. She’d cling on to her mother at the school gates, screaming and crying for her not to leave her there, in a manner usually seen in kindergarten children. Other kids at the school had laughed at her, despite knowing her story; they couldn’t possibly understand her fear that if she just walked into the school as though nothing had happened, her mother wouldn’t come back for her, that she would disappear with no explanation too. This one teacher had tried to calm her down once by saying that people didn’t just disappear, and then immediately biting her lip and realising what she had said. Because they did. How could her father, Cal and Auntie Michaela just have disappeared into thin air? Olive couldn’t even remember the last thing she’d said to them, thought it was probably something stupid. Just a wave over her shoulder, as she, her mother and grandparents had boarded their original flight, not even bothering to give them a backward glance. Why would she? She was going to see them soon enough anyway, looked forward to telling Cal about how crap the in-flight movie was and about the couple she’d seen getting frogmarched out of the toilet.
And she remembered arriving at the airport, waiting for the rest of her family to arrive so they could all go home together. She remembered the computer screens at the airport listing the flight as being half an hour late, then an hour, and finally “delayed” with no explanation. She remembered her grandfather muttering about the incompetence of the airline, someone threatening to sue, the long lines at the information desk where no one was able to provide any information. She remembered her mother biting her nails, Grandma Karen trying to comfort her while not knowing quite what to say, someone eventually advising them all to just go home and wait for further updates that never came.
Olive was eventually taken out of school and homeschooled for a while, and it eventually got to the point where she wouldn’t leave the house. Her fear of her mother suddenly disappearing had morphed into a fear that she would disappear herself, and she thought that the only way she could be sure that it wouldn’t happen was not to leave the house at all. Whatever it was that had taken her dad, Cal and Auntie Michaela, it couldn’t get her in her own home. Grace had called in therapist after therapist, and eventually one had got through to her enough that Olive was able to make a fresh start in a new school, one where she wouldn’t be surrounded by either the kids who had laughed at her or memories of the time she had spent there with Cal. She couldn’t, of course, escape it totally; the disappearance of the flight had become worldwide news, and Olive knew that whatever she did, there were still some kids who saw her as That Kid Whose Family Disappeared, just as at her old school before the flight, she’d been That Kid Whose Brother Was Dying. And when Malaysia Airlines Flight 870 hit the news, and Flight 828 was brought up again, it brought it all back. But she had her friends, she had her mother. In time, this life became the new normal for Olive, she’d go to school, hang out with her friends, come home, like any other teenager.
Then had come the day when Grace had received a strange phone call, had walked in, turned off the show Olive was watching, sat down beside her.
“It’s your dad, and Cal, and Auntie Michaela. They’re alive.”
Famdon: Manifest
Characters: Olive, Grace. Mentions of Ben, Cal, Michaela.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for the pilot episode
Summary: The missing five years between Flight 828's departure and landing, as seen through the eyes of Olive Stone.
There was a movie Olive had never liked when she was younger; Flight of the Navigator. From what she remembered, there was some kid who’d been abducted by aliens or something and come back to find that while he hadn’t aged a day, his family had all aged eight years. She was fuzzy on the details; someone had put it on at a sleepover and she’d ended up falling asleep in the middle of it, but she remembered that much.
Olive had never imagined at the time how close that stupid movie was going to come to her life.
For a long time after Flight 828 disappeared, Olive would hear Grace crying in her room every night. One time, she’d walked in on Grace cutting up one of Ben’s suits, yelling and crying about how it was all his fault, because if he hadn’t been such a God-awful father, never spending enough time with his kids, Cal wouldn’t have been so desperate to spend time with him that he’d asked to go on the later flight, depriving her of the last few months with Cal. Olive had known that she could never tell her mother that there was a part of her at the time that had been relieved that Cal had been on the later flight with their dad. It had felt like their whole lives had revolved around Cal’s treatment for the last few months, and of course she loved her twin, couldn’t imagine at the time what life would be like without him. But there were times when Olive just wanted some attention for herself, to be able to talk about things like fights she’d had with her friends without feeling like she was taking up her parents’ time over something stupid and unimportant, to be able to talk about girl stuff, to spend some quality time with her parents rather than be left with either her grandparents or Aunt Michaela while they were at yet another clinic with Cal. Another part of her was ashamed that she’d thought that, knew that when they actually got home she’d be glad to see Cal again, but at that time she just wanted to spend some time alone with her mother.
No one at that time had yet told the young Olive to be careful what she wished for.
For a long time, Olive was afraid that one day her mother would disappear on her too. She’d cling on to her mother at the school gates, screaming and crying for her not to leave her there, in a manner usually seen in kindergarten children. Other kids at the school had laughed at her, despite knowing her story; they couldn’t possibly understand her fear that if she just walked into the school as though nothing had happened, her mother wouldn’t come back for her, that she would disappear with no explanation too. This one teacher had tried to calm her down once by saying that people didn’t just disappear, and then immediately biting her lip and realising what she had said. Because they did. How could her father, Cal and Auntie Michaela just have disappeared into thin air? Olive couldn’t even remember the last thing she’d said to them, thought it was probably something stupid. Just a wave over her shoulder, as she, her mother and grandparents had boarded their original flight, not even bothering to give them a backward glance. Why would she? She was going to see them soon enough anyway, looked forward to telling Cal about how crap the in-flight movie was and about the couple she’d seen getting frogmarched out of the toilet.
And she remembered arriving at the airport, waiting for the rest of her family to arrive so they could all go home together. She remembered the computer screens at the airport listing the flight as being half an hour late, then an hour, and finally “delayed” with no explanation. She remembered her grandfather muttering about the incompetence of the airline, someone threatening to sue, the long lines at the information desk where no one was able to provide any information. She remembered her mother biting her nails, Grandma Karen trying to comfort her while not knowing quite what to say, someone eventually advising them all to just go home and wait for further updates that never came.
Olive was eventually taken out of school and homeschooled for a while, and it eventually got to the point where she wouldn’t leave the house. Her fear of her mother suddenly disappearing had morphed into a fear that she would disappear herself, and she thought that the only way she could be sure that it wouldn’t happen was not to leave the house at all. Whatever it was that had taken her dad, Cal and Auntie Michaela, it couldn’t get her in her own home. Grace had called in therapist after therapist, and eventually one had got through to her enough that Olive was able to make a fresh start in a new school, one where she wouldn’t be surrounded by either the kids who had laughed at her or memories of the time she had spent there with Cal. She couldn’t, of course, escape it totally; the disappearance of the flight had become worldwide news, and Olive knew that whatever she did, there were still some kids who saw her as That Kid Whose Family Disappeared, just as at her old school before the flight, she’d been That Kid Whose Brother Was Dying. And when Malaysia Airlines Flight 870 hit the news, and Flight 828 was brought up again, it brought it all back. But she had her friends, she had her mother. In time, this life became the new normal for Olive, she’d go to school, hang out with her friends, come home, like any other teenager.
Then had come the day when Grace had received a strange phone call, had walked in, turned off the show Olive was watching, sat down beside her.
“It’s your dad, and Cal, and Auntie Michaela. They’re alive.”