Fic: Mary Anne/Dawn
Title: Can’t Stand The Waiting
Author: velvetandlace
Fandom: BSC. Yes, Baby-Sitters Club
Characters/Pairing: Mary Anne; a little Mary Anne/Dawn or Mary Anne/Kristy, because it is for Ari.
Timeline/Spoilers: Old-school BSC, this is #4, Mary Anne Saves the Day.
Rating/Warning: Very very vague femslash.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no gain, don’t sue please.
Summary: Mary Anne feels like she hasn’t got a friend in the world - maybe not even her new friend, Dawn.
A/N: About 1000 words.
She said she’d call.
It’s become a chant in Mary Anne’s head. She said she’d call, she said she’d call, she said she’d call. It’s low and quiet and reassuring, but it isn’t what she believes.
Dawn won’t call. Dawn’s probably realised she was spending an afternoon with a big baby and tomorrow at school she’ll have found someone else to sit with. Probably Kristy, because people always like Kristy more than they like Mary Anne, and they always forget Mary Anne once they meet Kristy.
Mary Anne is Mary Anne The Mouse, the shyest girl in seventh grade, with braids and fuzzy pink sweaters and a book bag over her shoulder, bag lunch inside her locker with a chewing-gum mounted Cam Geary poster on the inside of the door, because that’s what girls do in seventh grade, put up posters of Cam Geary on their locker door. She rests her chin on her hand, sitting by the phone, and she thinks that Dawn wouldn’t have a poster like that. If she had anything, Mary Anne thinks, it would be the ocean or a landscape, something open and free, like Dawn is when she talks.
It’s silly, Mary Anne reminds herself, to be thinking about Dawn. What would a girl like that want with her? She still thinks the only reason she and Kristy were ever friends were because they lived so close together and Kristy had a moment of pity when they were even younger. She knows why Claudia and Stacey were her friends, and that was only because of the Club, and even now that doesn’t matter, because they’re not friends, not any one of them.
Lonely. That’s what this is. It’s cold out, colder than it should be, and her Dad’s not home, and even though she’s only allowed to talk on the phone for ten minutes and she should be making a salad for dinner, Mary Anne’s sitting beside the phone in the kitchen and waiting for a ring that’ll feel like summer. She’ll snatch up the receiver and answer the phone like her father taught her, and there’d be a pause, and maybe, Mary Anne would think, maybe it would be Kristy calling to apologise or even Claud or Stacey, but then that voice would dance over the line, Dawn’s voice, the voice that reminds Mary Anne of citrus-y perfume, the kind she’s not allowed to wear. However, the phone isn’t ringing and there’s no one to answer for and wait to hear, and Mary Anne just feels so lonely, sniffling and absently untying and re-tying the ribbons that hold her braids in place.
There are fifteen more minutes before Mary Anne can even think of getting up and making the salad, but she can’t disappoint her Dad, she can’t get in trouble, so finally she does. Her eyes never leave the telephone. She’s never paid this much attention to the phone before, or even liked it before, but then, she’s never had a Dawn before.
Mary Anne shreds lettuce and she thinks about how Dawn makes her feel. When she was talking to Dawn, she wasn’t little Mouse Mary Anne, she was… New Mary Anne, whoever she wanted to be Mary Anne. She could start over and be whoever she wanted without Dawn already thinking she was someone else, and that was exciting and scary and something Mary Anne really, really wants more of.
She wants Dawn to be her friend.
She wants Dawn to be her best friend. The two of them could talk about kids and books and Dawn could tell her about California and Mary Anne could show her around Stoneybrook and maybe, just maybe, she’d forget about her old friends, about Kristy, and she wouldn’t have to remember how everything went so wrong.
Things wouldn’t go wrong with Dawn, Mary Anne thinks as she diligently sets the table. Dawn would just have to be so easy-going, she could tell that already. And if something was wrong she’d talk, but she wouldn’t be mean about it, she wouldn’t yell, and she definitely wouldn’t make Mary Anne cry. No, everything would be easy.
Dawn makes her feel like a baby and not a baby at the same time. She makes Mary Anne feel like it’s okay to be anything or anyone, even if that’s exactly who she is. She thinks that maybe she could tell Dawn anything, like she and Kristy do, but this isn’t about Kristy. It’s about Dawn and a phone that just seems so plastic and cold and hard without a ring behind it.
It’s been hours since school let out now, three hours and twenty-four minutes, and there’s been nothing at all. It’s almost time for Mary Anne’s Dad to come home and she’s hasn’t even thought to concentrate on her homework, and she hasn’t touched her English paper, and the strains of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” are stuck in her head. All Mary Anne can think of is Dawn, of her exciting new almost-friend, of this girl she just… admires, so much, and what if Dawn really has forgotten her? How can Mary Anne just run into her in the SMS halls and not be able to look her in her clear blue eyes or tap her shoulder and press a secret note into her hand between classes? What if she has no choice but to forget her? Why does she even-
The phone rings.
Mary Anne jumps, wide-eyed and startled, and she screams of fright. There’s another ring, and then another, and she tries to slow the racing of her heartbeat. It’s just the phone.
“Hello? Th-this is M-mary Anne Spier.”
Laughter, warm like a breeze on a sunny day. “Hey, Mary Anne, it’s Dawn.”
Mary Anne smiles shyly, ducking her head, and crossing over to the bench, she perches atop it and crosses her ankles.
“Hi, Dawn. I-I knew you’d call.”
fin.
Author: velvetandlace
Fandom: BSC. Yes, Baby-Sitters Club
Characters/Pairing: Mary Anne; a little Mary Anne/Dawn or Mary Anne/Kristy, because it is for Ari.
Timeline/Spoilers: Old-school BSC, this is #4, Mary Anne Saves the Day.
Rating/Warning: Very very vague femslash.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no gain, don’t sue please.
Summary: Mary Anne feels like she hasn’t got a friend in the world - maybe not even her new friend, Dawn.
A/N: About 1000 words.
She said she’d call.
It’s become a chant in Mary Anne’s head. She said she’d call, she said she’d call, she said she’d call. It’s low and quiet and reassuring, but it isn’t what she believes.
Dawn won’t call. Dawn’s probably realised she was spending an afternoon with a big baby and tomorrow at school she’ll have found someone else to sit with. Probably Kristy, because people always like Kristy more than they like Mary Anne, and they always forget Mary Anne once they meet Kristy.
Mary Anne is Mary Anne The Mouse, the shyest girl in seventh grade, with braids and fuzzy pink sweaters and a book bag over her shoulder, bag lunch inside her locker with a chewing-gum mounted Cam Geary poster on the inside of the door, because that’s what girls do in seventh grade, put up posters of Cam Geary on their locker door. She rests her chin on her hand, sitting by the phone, and she thinks that Dawn wouldn’t have a poster like that. If she had anything, Mary Anne thinks, it would be the ocean or a landscape, something open and free, like Dawn is when she talks.
It’s silly, Mary Anne reminds herself, to be thinking about Dawn. What would a girl like that want with her? She still thinks the only reason she and Kristy were ever friends were because they lived so close together and Kristy had a moment of pity when they were even younger. She knows why Claudia and Stacey were her friends, and that was only because of the Club, and even now that doesn’t matter, because they’re not friends, not any one of them.
Lonely. That’s what this is. It’s cold out, colder than it should be, and her Dad’s not home, and even though she’s only allowed to talk on the phone for ten minutes and she should be making a salad for dinner, Mary Anne’s sitting beside the phone in the kitchen and waiting for a ring that’ll feel like summer. She’ll snatch up the receiver and answer the phone like her father taught her, and there’d be a pause, and maybe, Mary Anne would think, maybe it would be Kristy calling to apologise or even Claud or Stacey, but then that voice would dance over the line, Dawn’s voice, the voice that reminds Mary Anne of citrus-y perfume, the kind she’s not allowed to wear. However, the phone isn’t ringing and there’s no one to answer for and wait to hear, and Mary Anne just feels so lonely, sniffling and absently untying and re-tying the ribbons that hold her braids in place.
There are fifteen more minutes before Mary Anne can even think of getting up and making the salad, but she can’t disappoint her Dad, she can’t get in trouble, so finally she does. Her eyes never leave the telephone. She’s never paid this much attention to the phone before, or even liked it before, but then, she’s never had a Dawn before.
Mary Anne shreds lettuce and she thinks about how Dawn makes her feel. When she was talking to Dawn, she wasn’t little Mouse Mary Anne, she was… New Mary Anne, whoever she wanted to be Mary Anne. She could start over and be whoever she wanted without Dawn already thinking she was someone else, and that was exciting and scary and something Mary Anne really, really wants more of.
She wants Dawn to be her friend.
She wants Dawn to be her best friend. The two of them could talk about kids and books and Dawn could tell her about California and Mary Anne could show her around Stoneybrook and maybe, just maybe, she’d forget about her old friends, about Kristy, and she wouldn’t have to remember how everything went so wrong.
Things wouldn’t go wrong with Dawn, Mary Anne thinks as she diligently sets the table. Dawn would just have to be so easy-going, she could tell that already. And if something was wrong she’d talk, but she wouldn’t be mean about it, she wouldn’t yell, and she definitely wouldn’t make Mary Anne cry. No, everything would be easy.
Dawn makes her feel like a baby and not a baby at the same time. She makes Mary Anne feel like it’s okay to be anything or anyone, even if that’s exactly who she is. She thinks that maybe she could tell Dawn anything, like she and Kristy do, but this isn’t about Kristy. It’s about Dawn and a phone that just seems so plastic and cold and hard without a ring behind it.
It’s been hours since school let out now, three hours and twenty-four minutes, and there’s been nothing at all. It’s almost time for Mary Anne’s Dad to come home and she’s hasn’t even thought to concentrate on her homework, and she hasn’t touched her English paper, and the strains of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” are stuck in her head. All Mary Anne can think of is Dawn, of her exciting new almost-friend, of this girl she just… admires, so much, and what if Dawn really has forgotten her? How can Mary Anne just run into her in the SMS halls and not be able to look her in her clear blue eyes or tap her shoulder and press a secret note into her hand between classes? What if she has no choice but to forget her? Why does she even-
The phone rings.
Mary Anne jumps, wide-eyed and startled, and she screams of fright. There’s another ring, and then another, and she tries to slow the racing of her heartbeat. It’s just the phone.
“Hello? Th-this is M-mary Anne Spier.”
Laughter, warm like a breeze on a sunny day. “Hey, Mary Anne, it’s Dawn.”
Mary Anne smiles shyly, ducking her head, and crossing over to the bench, she perches atop it and crosses her ankles.
“Hi, Dawn. I-I knew you’d call.”
fin.