Fic: The Long Way Home (1/1)
Title: The Long Way Home (1/1)
Characters: Ianto’s neice and sister (Mica, Rhiannon), Jack Harkness, a few others scattered here and there
Rating: G
Summary: The long way home takes her by the churchyard, and he was nice, and wanted to take her to McDonald’s.
A/N: Great big massive spoilers for Torchwood: Children of Earth. Thanks to wendymr, who Britpicked like mad for me, and jlrpuck, who did not insist I include a leopard.
The Long Way Home
The churchyard is on the way home from school, along the river and not on the High Street by the sweetshop. It’s a prettier walk but it adds at least fifteen minutes, and for the first month after, Mica doesn’t take that path, because Mam worries when she and David are late home from school. They’re lucky she doesn’t walk with them - her friend Adrian’s mam picks him up every day, and Adrian was never so mortified as when his mam took his hand right in front of the whole class.
It was awful.
Mam lets Mica and David walk. But she waits by their front door, watches for them, and when they appear, Mica can see Mam dart behind the curtain so she can pretend she wasn’t watching.
Mica takes the long way home after a month. She forgets. It’s easy to forget. Her uncle didn’t see them that often, and she never really thought about him much when he did. But he was nice and wanted to take her to McDonald’s, and Mam didn’t let him.
It’s getting colder and the leaves are pretty and Mica needs the brightest colors for her desk at school if she’s going to win first prize, and first prize is a set of sparkle-stickers and Mica wants them more than anything. So she takes the long path by the river, and she picks leaf after leaf after leaf, collects them carefully in the palm of her hand.
When she looks up, she’s standing in the churchyard, and the trees are more brilliant than anything by the river.
Mica was only in the churchyard for a little while that day when Mam couldn’t stop crying, but she remembers where he is. She stops in front of the slate marker engraved with his name, and thinks that perhaps she should feel sad, or sorry, but Mam’s cried all the tears in the world already, every day over, and Mica doesn’t have any herself. He wanted to take her to McDonald’s, and she didn’t get to go.
She sets the leaves down in front of the slate, and arranges them all very nicely so that he can see every one of them.
“That’s birch,” she says. “And that one’s oak. And - I don’t know what that one is. But it’s the brightest orange. I haven’t ever seen a leaf so orange, have you?”
When the leaves are all spread out, Mica pulls the ones she likes the best away, piles them up to go to school and decorate her desk. She almost takes the bright orange leaf, but leaves it instead, because it’s the very brightest one of all, and really, it wasn’t his fault they couldn’t go to lunch.
“Bye,” she says, holding the rest of the leaves in her hand, and hopes he likes the leaves she left him.
Mam scolds when Mica returns home with crushed leaves in her hands.
*
It starts to snow just when school lets out, and Mica and Adrian and Lucy and Ed all try to catch the flimsy flakes in their mouths, but half of them never really make it to the ground anyway, and there’s only enough snow to cover the cars so they glisten like the sparkle-stickers Mica didn’t win. They forget that it’s time to go home, until Miss comes out and scolds them for loitering, and then Adrian and Lucy and Ed race down the road, but Mica take the long way, because the glistening cars are making her think.
There aren’t any leaves anymore to bring him, but Mica feels she ought to bring something, and at the very last minute, Mica finds a rock that’s shaped a bit like a heart, if she turns it the right way. It’s not a blob like the heart that’s on the poster of the Invisible Man at school, but a real heart, like a Valentine.
The ground in the churchyard is slightly damp and Mica doesn’t want to get her knees wet, but just like the cars, there is the faintest bit of snow still clinging to the slate. It sparkles in the sunlight, only it’s hard to read his name. Mica leaves the snow-dust on the top of the slate, but brushes the loose snow from the engraving, runs her fingers in the crevices, traces out his name letter by letter.
The rock blends into the ground too well, but Mica goes back to the stone wall that lines the churchyard, and pushes the loose bits of snow-dust into her mittens, and carries it back to him, to make a neat little bed for the rock at the base of the slate. It isn’t much, but it’s enough. The snow is mixed with dirt and grass, but it’s still a nice little bed, like a bit of fluffy cloud, really. Mica thinks it looks nice like that, just a little stone heart waiting in what’s left of the snow. She can imagine that the snow is white feathers like angel’s wings; like a passing angel left their heart behind by accident, and she’s taking care of it for when he comes back. Better a heart with no angel, than an angel with no heart.
It’s nice in the churchyard, with the slate markers glistening like sparkle-stickers, and the trees cast long shadows on the ground. Mica crouches so as not to get her knees damp, and tells him about Mam crying, and David having to stay after school for talking back to the teacher, and Da wanting to buy a new telly with the new money. Mam said it was for their education, but there was still a new telly anyway.
Mam scolds when Mica returns home with her mittens soaked through.
*
Christmas, and no school, and Mica can’t get away to the churchyard, not even on Sundays, because they don’t really go to church, and Mam cries harder than ever sometimes. There’s the lady who comes round again, and she’s having a baby, she says, but Mica doesn’t think she looks it. Lucy’s mum’s had three babies, and Lucy’s mum blows up big as the sweetshop for every one, and the lady drinking tea at the kitchen table is skinny as anything.
She’s pretty, though, the lady, and she cries with Mam, and they talk about names. When Mica hears his name, it’s almost a jolt, because she hasn’t heard it said in - oh, ages. Mam doesn’t say it anymore. Neither does Da, neither does David, neither does Mica herself, even when she’s tracing out the letters of his name.
They cry and drink cups of tea, and Mica curls up on the chair near the window, and watches the rain fall. The slate will be wet and it will shine black against the grey letters of his name, and Mica thinks she’ll slip out when Mam isn’t looking to see for herself. She wonders if he likes his heart-shaped rock, if he’s cold, if he’s wet, and thinks she should bring him a hat.
*
Spring brings birdsong, even if there’s no daffodils yet, and the long way home beckons, and Mam doesn’t mind anymore if Mica is home a bit later than usual. She still cries though, and David still bangs the doors too loud, and Adrian’s mum hasn’t picked him up from school since Christmas.
But Mica takes the long way home every day, and runs her fingers in the deep crevices of his name, and sometimes says it aloud because the syllables feel nice on her tongue. The flowers will pop up soon, the yellow and white ones that always appear before anything else, and she’s going to learn all their names so she can tell him.
Today, she has a drawing. Everything she leaves him is always gone the next day. He’ll return them when she’s older, when he doesn’t need them anymore.
But today, as Mica skips up the path into the churchyard - she stops at the gate. Because there’s someone there already, his back to her, and for a minute, Mica’s heart leaps in her throat. He’s tall, and he has dark hair, and even though there’s a breeze, his coat doesn’t move an inch. Mica rests her hand on the stone wall and waits. She can’t even breathe, because it’s him, isn’t it, he’s come back, he has her leaves and her school essay and her spelling test with the highest mark in class and the best bow from her favorite Christmas present and the little stone heart that she left in the snow.
He doesn’t have wings, not that she can see. Maybe they’re under the coat.
She walks down the path, all the way, her feet crunching on the pavement, and when she’s close enough, she can see his face. She knows, then. It’s not him. It’s someone else, someone she doesn’t know, and for a moment, Mica feels more alone and lost than anything else in the world. Like she’s the angel with a great big hole in her stomach where her heart is meant to be.
The man doesn’t move, not a bit, and his eyes are red and his face is pale. He doesn’t even twitch as Mica creeps up beside him. Mica thinks he looks exactly like Mam does, when the tears are worn out and there’s nothing left to cry. Like he’s missing his heart in his stomach, too.
Mica slips her hand into his. His fingers tighten around hers, but not too tight. Just right, just like he knows exactly how to hold a hand that’s so much smaller.
“I brought him a drawing,” she says. “Here, do you want to look?”
He opens his eyes, and gives a little start. His mouth drops open, just a little, and his mouth works, like he can’t speak. Mica hands him the drawing, and he takes it with his free hand.
“It’s of a rhinoceros,” explains Mica. “We learned about them today in school.”
“Did you?” asks the man, and his voice is funny. Not like crying funny, although it’s funny like that too, but he sounds like the people in the movies Mam puts on the telly for them, when she doesn’t want to be bothered.
“They live in Africa, and have horns, and great big thick leathery skin. I made mine purple. They’re not really purple though.” This last was a whisper, just in case the man didn’t know about rhinoceroses not being purple. Mica didn’t know either, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“It’s a nice rhinoceros,” says the man, and he kneels down, not caring in the least that the ground is still muddy and damp from winter. He has funny boards on the shoulders of his coat, and the buttons are brass and shiny. “You should draw him a pteranodon.”
Mica wrinkles her nose. “I don’t like dinosaurs.”
“He did,” says the man. “You look like him.”
“He wanted to take me to McDonald’s,” says Mica, without knowing quite why, but it’s really what she remembers about him best. “It was my birthday before, and he forgot, and he came and wanted to take me to lunch. Just me,” Mica clarifies, because that was the important bit. “Not David and not Mam, me.”
“Did he?” asks the man.
She nods. “We didn’t go to school for three days, and I wasn’t even sick, but Mam wouldn’t let him. She didn’t want me to go.”
Something in the man’s face changed. “When?”
“When we stayed home from school, and the men came to find us and take us away,” says Mica. “Ages ago. Can I have my drawing back? It’s for him.”
The man hands her the drawing, without saying a word, and he covers his mouth and nose with his hand afterwards. His eyes close again, which is just as well, because Mica doesn’t want an audience.
She sets the drawing against the slate. “It’s a rhinoceros,” she tells him - not the man, of course, since he knows it already. “I’ll bring you a pteranodon tomorrow.”
She runs her fingers along his name, following the crevices one after the other as she traces it out. She whispers it under her breath, because even if his eyes are closed, the man can still hear her, and she doesn’t want to be heard. He’s her uncle, not his. Hers.
When she’s done, she gives the slate a pat, and before she can blink, is back on the path leading to home. The empty place in her stomach doesn’t ache so badly now; she marked her claim on him and left him a rhinoceros.
She almost forgets the man in the coat.
“Goodbye,” she calls out, turning around to wave furiously, and he nods back to her, but the smile on his face isn’t quite true. She can tell.
But it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow she has to draw a pteranodon, and then there will be daffodils.
Characters: Ianto’s neice and sister (Mica, Rhiannon), Jack Harkness, a few others scattered here and there
Rating: G
Summary: The long way home takes her by the churchyard, and he was nice, and wanted to take her to McDonald’s.
A/N: Great big massive spoilers for Torchwood: Children of Earth. Thanks to wendymr, who Britpicked like mad for me, and jlrpuck, who did not insist I include a leopard.
The Long Way Home
The churchyard is on the way home from school, along the river and not on the High Street by the sweetshop. It’s a prettier walk but it adds at least fifteen minutes, and for the first month after, Mica doesn’t take that path, because Mam worries when she and David are late home from school. They’re lucky she doesn’t walk with them - her friend Adrian’s mam picks him up every day, and Adrian was never so mortified as when his mam took his hand right in front of the whole class.
It was awful.
Mam lets Mica and David walk. But she waits by their front door, watches for them, and when they appear, Mica can see Mam dart behind the curtain so she can pretend she wasn’t watching.
Mica takes the long way home after a month. She forgets. It’s easy to forget. Her uncle didn’t see them that often, and she never really thought about him much when he did. But he was nice and wanted to take her to McDonald’s, and Mam didn’t let him.
It’s getting colder and the leaves are pretty and Mica needs the brightest colors for her desk at school if she’s going to win first prize, and first prize is a set of sparkle-stickers and Mica wants them more than anything. So she takes the long path by the river, and she picks leaf after leaf after leaf, collects them carefully in the palm of her hand.
When she looks up, she’s standing in the churchyard, and the trees are more brilliant than anything by the river.
Mica was only in the churchyard for a little while that day when Mam couldn’t stop crying, but she remembers where he is. She stops in front of the slate marker engraved with his name, and thinks that perhaps she should feel sad, or sorry, but Mam’s cried all the tears in the world already, every day over, and Mica doesn’t have any herself. He wanted to take her to McDonald’s, and she didn’t get to go.
She sets the leaves down in front of the slate, and arranges them all very nicely so that he can see every one of them.
“That’s birch,” she says. “And that one’s oak. And - I don’t know what that one is. But it’s the brightest orange. I haven’t ever seen a leaf so orange, have you?”
When the leaves are all spread out, Mica pulls the ones she likes the best away, piles them up to go to school and decorate her desk. She almost takes the bright orange leaf, but leaves it instead, because it’s the very brightest one of all, and really, it wasn’t his fault they couldn’t go to lunch.
“Bye,” she says, holding the rest of the leaves in her hand, and hopes he likes the leaves she left him.
Mam scolds when Mica returns home with crushed leaves in her hands.
*
It starts to snow just when school lets out, and Mica and Adrian and Lucy and Ed all try to catch the flimsy flakes in their mouths, but half of them never really make it to the ground anyway, and there’s only enough snow to cover the cars so they glisten like the sparkle-stickers Mica didn’t win. They forget that it’s time to go home, until Miss comes out and scolds them for loitering, and then Adrian and Lucy and Ed race down the road, but Mica take the long way, because the glistening cars are making her think.
There aren’t any leaves anymore to bring him, but Mica feels she ought to bring something, and at the very last minute, Mica finds a rock that’s shaped a bit like a heart, if she turns it the right way. It’s not a blob like the heart that’s on the poster of the Invisible Man at school, but a real heart, like a Valentine.
The ground in the churchyard is slightly damp and Mica doesn’t want to get her knees wet, but just like the cars, there is the faintest bit of snow still clinging to the slate. It sparkles in the sunlight, only it’s hard to read his name. Mica leaves the snow-dust on the top of the slate, but brushes the loose snow from the engraving, runs her fingers in the crevices, traces out his name letter by letter.
The rock blends into the ground too well, but Mica goes back to the stone wall that lines the churchyard, and pushes the loose bits of snow-dust into her mittens, and carries it back to him, to make a neat little bed for the rock at the base of the slate. It isn’t much, but it’s enough. The snow is mixed with dirt and grass, but it’s still a nice little bed, like a bit of fluffy cloud, really. Mica thinks it looks nice like that, just a little stone heart waiting in what’s left of the snow. She can imagine that the snow is white feathers like angel’s wings; like a passing angel left their heart behind by accident, and she’s taking care of it for when he comes back. Better a heart with no angel, than an angel with no heart.
It’s nice in the churchyard, with the slate markers glistening like sparkle-stickers, and the trees cast long shadows on the ground. Mica crouches so as not to get her knees damp, and tells him about Mam crying, and David having to stay after school for talking back to the teacher, and Da wanting to buy a new telly with the new money. Mam said it was for their education, but there was still a new telly anyway.
Mam scolds when Mica returns home with her mittens soaked through.
*
Christmas, and no school, and Mica can’t get away to the churchyard, not even on Sundays, because they don’t really go to church, and Mam cries harder than ever sometimes. There’s the lady who comes round again, and she’s having a baby, she says, but Mica doesn’t think she looks it. Lucy’s mum’s had three babies, and Lucy’s mum blows up big as the sweetshop for every one, and the lady drinking tea at the kitchen table is skinny as anything.
She’s pretty, though, the lady, and she cries with Mam, and they talk about names. When Mica hears his name, it’s almost a jolt, because she hasn’t heard it said in - oh, ages. Mam doesn’t say it anymore. Neither does Da, neither does David, neither does Mica herself, even when she’s tracing out the letters of his name.
They cry and drink cups of tea, and Mica curls up on the chair near the window, and watches the rain fall. The slate will be wet and it will shine black against the grey letters of his name, and Mica thinks she’ll slip out when Mam isn’t looking to see for herself. She wonders if he likes his heart-shaped rock, if he’s cold, if he’s wet, and thinks she should bring him a hat.
*
Spring brings birdsong, even if there’s no daffodils yet, and the long way home beckons, and Mam doesn’t mind anymore if Mica is home a bit later than usual. She still cries though, and David still bangs the doors too loud, and Adrian’s mum hasn’t picked him up from school since Christmas.
But Mica takes the long way home every day, and runs her fingers in the deep crevices of his name, and sometimes says it aloud because the syllables feel nice on her tongue. The flowers will pop up soon, the yellow and white ones that always appear before anything else, and she’s going to learn all their names so she can tell him.
Today, she has a drawing. Everything she leaves him is always gone the next day. He’ll return them when she’s older, when he doesn’t need them anymore.
But today, as Mica skips up the path into the churchyard - she stops at the gate. Because there’s someone there already, his back to her, and for a minute, Mica’s heart leaps in her throat. He’s tall, and he has dark hair, and even though there’s a breeze, his coat doesn’t move an inch. Mica rests her hand on the stone wall and waits. She can’t even breathe, because it’s him, isn’t it, he’s come back, he has her leaves and her school essay and her spelling test with the highest mark in class and the best bow from her favorite Christmas present and the little stone heart that she left in the snow.
He doesn’t have wings, not that she can see. Maybe they’re under the coat.
She walks down the path, all the way, her feet crunching on the pavement, and when she’s close enough, she can see his face. She knows, then. It’s not him. It’s someone else, someone she doesn’t know, and for a moment, Mica feels more alone and lost than anything else in the world. Like she’s the angel with a great big hole in her stomach where her heart is meant to be.
The man doesn’t move, not a bit, and his eyes are red and his face is pale. He doesn’t even twitch as Mica creeps up beside him. Mica thinks he looks exactly like Mam does, when the tears are worn out and there’s nothing left to cry. Like he’s missing his heart in his stomach, too.
Mica slips her hand into his. His fingers tighten around hers, but not too tight. Just right, just like he knows exactly how to hold a hand that’s so much smaller.
“I brought him a drawing,” she says. “Here, do you want to look?”
He opens his eyes, and gives a little start. His mouth drops open, just a little, and his mouth works, like he can’t speak. Mica hands him the drawing, and he takes it with his free hand.
“It’s of a rhinoceros,” explains Mica. “We learned about them today in school.”
“Did you?” asks the man, and his voice is funny. Not like crying funny, although it’s funny like that too, but he sounds like the people in the movies Mam puts on the telly for them, when she doesn’t want to be bothered.
“They live in Africa, and have horns, and great big thick leathery skin. I made mine purple. They’re not really purple though.” This last was a whisper, just in case the man didn’t know about rhinoceroses not being purple. Mica didn’t know either, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“It’s a nice rhinoceros,” says the man, and he kneels down, not caring in the least that the ground is still muddy and damp from winter. He has funny boards on the shoulders of his coat, and the buttons are brass and shiny. “You should draw him a pteranodon.”
Mica wrinkles her nose. “I don’t like dinosaurs.”
“He did,” says the man. “You look like him.”
“He wanted to take me to McDonald’s,” says Mica, without knowing quite why, but it’s really what she remembers about him best. “It was my birthday before, and he forgot, and he came and wanted to take me to lunch. Just me,” Mica clarifies, because that was the important bit. “Not David and not Mam, me.”
“Did he?” asks the man.
She nods. “We didn’t go to school for three days, and I wasn’t even sick, but Mam wouldn’t let him. She didn’t want me to go.”
Something in the man’s face changed. “When?”
“When we stayed home from school, and the men came to find us and take us away,” says Mica. “Ages ago. Can I have my drawing back? It’s for him.”
The man hands her the drawing, without saying a word, and he covers his mouth and nose with his hand afterwards. His eyes close again, which is just as well, because Mica doesn’t want an audience.
She sets the drawing against the slate. “It’s a rhinoceros,” she tells him - not the man, of course, since he knows it already. “I’ll bring you a pteranodon tomorrow.”
She runs her fingers along his name, following the crevices one after the other as she traces it out. She whispers it under her breath, because even if his eyes are closed, the man can still hear her, and she doesn’t want to be heard. He’s her uncle, not his. Hers.
When she’s done, she gives the slate a pat, and before she can blink, is back on the path leading to home. The empty place in her stomach doesn’t ache so badly now; she marked her claim on him and left him a rhinoceros.
She almost forgets the man in the coat.
“Goodbye,” she calls out, turning around to wave furiously, and he nods back to her, but the smile on his face isn’t quite true. She can tell.
But it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow she has to draw a pteranodon, and then there will be daffodils.