Oneshots! Toy Story 3. SPOILERS. LARGE ONES.
Title: Three Blocks is Still Too Far
Rating: G
Notes: Originally meant to be a series of teensy vignettes, this has been condensed into a single, fairly large oneshot.
Molly had just turned six a few weeks before.
For her birthday, her friend Jenna gave her a pretty, swirly lamp with Mermaids swimming along the base. She'd been so excited, and her Little Bo Peep lamp got pushed to the corner of her room on a chair beside her dresser. Bo didn't mind, though, because really, Andy played with her more than Molly ever did, and he still came into her room to fetch Bo and her Sheep.
Woody wished, on more than one occasion, that Andy's boyish pride had relented enough for him to move the lamp into his room. Just move it in there, where it was being used, being loved. But no, Bo had sat there and sat there and sat there in the corner. And when the Yard Sale came, he didn't even get to say goodbye. They tried to stage a rescue, but Buster was outside and doors were closed and the window was locked and... and he watched as an elderly woman picked up his Bo and walked to a beat-up old van.
And she was gone. He watched the car until it disappeared behind the next block, hands pressed tight to the glass of the window. And when the rain started and the thunder boomed, it was Buzz who draped an arm around his shoulder and muttered the question.
"You gonna be okay, cowboy?"
And Woody could only answer with the truth.
"No."
The other toys tried, in their own ways, to comfort him, never in their memories had Woody, Andy's Favorite, been... depressed. Not like this, anyway. He hid himself under the bed and refused to come out for several days.
He couldn't face smiling when Andy played with him.
Eventually, though, Buzz and Jessie had to get him out and put him back in his spot on Andy's bed. Both couldn't really say anything, because what was there to say? Sorry just wouldn't have been enough.
In the end, time alone numbed him. He got back into himself after a while and started smiling without having to force it, though there still was something missing from the cowboy. Something important.
~~~
Three blocks away, Bo Peep stood with her flock in a lacy, doily-covered living room of the elderly couple who resided in this home. It was a warm, quiet home that smelled of sweet breads and vanilla candles. The residents were kind, they dusted her daily and their cat enjoyed curling up beneath the light she gave off in the evenings while the old couple sat and watched television. It was nice, most definitely nice, and she very quickly made friends with the other knick-knacks on her shelf.
But there was, of course, something missing that hurt her heart terribly. Her sheep understood, and did their best to comfort their mistress, and it helped but... when the rain fell, and she looked out the window and knew that a mere three blocks away was the one toy she'd give everything up to have in her arms.
She thought, sometimes, that life has a way of working that turns things out to be alright in the end. So Bo waited quietly on her shelf, and the years passed by in a whirl of dustings and passing hands, the deaths of her new owners, passing on to a young girl two houses down the street, a yard sale after that, losing her lampshade in the rush and being given a new one made of pink gauze and white cloth.
Each move was sometimes a little further away, a little closer, but still within that terrible three block range. She was so close, but so horribly far away from what she missed so dearly. She kept track of the distance every single time, and sometimes she'd get so close but still not close enough to hear his voice.
Seven years went by in a similar fashion, and Bo's painted smile was a little more weary with each move.
Another yard sale took place some weeks into the fall, and by Bo's estimation it was around November, judging by the leaves anyway. She was placed out on a fold-out table with several old plush toys and a set of pink bed sheets.
Like every sale, she was picked up carefully by a pair of hands and there was begging for mommy pleeeaasseee I really want this it's so pretty.
Sold and placed in a brown paper bag- just another move, this time, six blocks away.
~~~
WHAM! ThumpThumpThump!
"Bonnie's home, everybody! Back to your places!" Woody scrambled up onto the dresser, setting himself in his spot beside the nondescript purple lamp. Buzz joined him up there, after giving Jessie and Bullseye a leg- or four- up.
"Where was she?" Buzz muttered quietly as Bonnie pounded into the room gleefully.
"Not sure, I thought it was her grandmother's birthday."
"It is, be quiet you two." Jessie grinned wryly at the two toys.
"Bonnie," her mother called up the stairs. "Hurry up, drop your stuff and come on down to the car, or we'll by late to meet Grandma!"
"Okay!" the young girl placed the bag on her bed and hurried to the door, hurrying to meet her mother.
The room slowly came alive again.
Mr. Pricklepants was the first to reach the bag, nudging it and calling up to see if anybody was in there.
"Hello? Is anyone inside there?"
There was a rustling in the bag. "Er... I could use a little help, please!"
Woody, Buzz, Jessie and Bullseye made their way over and tipped the bag, so that the opening leaned down to the base.
And Woody was met with a face he hadn't seen in seven long, arduous years.
Eyes met, mouths dropped open, angels sang, light rained down, the whole shebang. Hearts exploded out of chests and did a tango on the floor, and Bo forgot that she was surrounded by strange toys. She forgot everything, she just saw the hat, the boots, the shirt, the stuffing, the toy before her. She shoved everything else away, and leapt at the Cowboy before her.
"WOODY!"
She clung to him, she didn't care what happened next, she just held onto her Cowboy as tightly as she could.
And Woody did the same. "B-Bo?"
He wanted to ask how, why, when, where had she been all these years? Shock, confusion, wonder. But suddenly specifics didn't matter, suddenly all that was on his mind was the porcelain figure he loved so dear. Nothing mattered more than the doll in his arms, and he pressed his face to hers with the first truly genuine smile in a long, long time. He clung right back to her, and decided that if she ever pulled away it would be too soon.
And Bo decided, in that same moment, that three blocks, three feet, three inches, three anything, would always be too far away.