Fic for karrenia_rune. :]
Title: And You Can Be My Long Lost Pal
Author: amazingly_me. :]
Characters/Pairings: Caitlin. Vague mentions of Peter/Caitlin? Sort of? :P
Rating: PG? Slight language, and some depressing themes. I promise it isn't all angst, all the time. ;]
Recipient: karrenia_rune
Prompt: Caitlin in the future, not a damsel in distress.
Summary: When Caitlin wakes up, stiff and numb, on the second day of quarantine, she knows that she cannot be just another face. These faces will get lost in the shuffle.
Author's Notes: Title taken from Paul Simon's, "You Can Call Me Al," because the entire album is nothing if not lyrical, and I am constantly gacking titles from it. ;] Rather depressing, though hopefully the ending isn't entirely sad.
The future is made of cold cement floors and angry iron bars, of a quarantine that is really a prison, of faces.
The future is made of faces. Scared faces, angry faces, hopeless faces, and Caitlin, Caitlin is just another face.
When Caitlin wakes up, stiff and numb, on the second day of quarantine (imprisonment) she knows that she cannot be just another face. These faces will get lost in the shuffle. They will become numbers. They will become statistics. The woman in the corner, her hair falling in curtains around her face, a child pressed against her thigh, will be death number five hundred and twenty-six, this year. The boy, perhaps sixteen, who is bouncing his heel against the relentless stone wall, will be number six hundred and twelve. The middle-aged man who is trying to start a conversation with one of the guards, trying to get a newspaper, a cup of coffee, a glance in his direction, will be number six hundred and seventy-seven. Disease and fear is settling over these people, these numbers. Hope, Caitlin thinks, is conspicuous by its absence.
Caitlin has to make somebody care.
+ + + + + + + +
"Where're you from then?" She asks the boy, the teenager. He has switched heels, is thumping at the wall with his left foot now, and it takes him a minute to realize she's talking to him.
"Why?" He asks, narrowing his eyes. She cannot decide if he is suspicious or annoyed.
"'Cause," she says, fighting to stop from jiggling her own foot, "I'm curious."
"You've got a weird accent," he says, and she makes a conscious choice to laugh.
"I'm Irish," she says, "now play fair and tell me where you're from."
"Portland," he says, "Oregon. Not Maine."
There is a pause, and for an instant his foot stops moving. "Everybody always thinks I mean Maine. But there's more than one Portland."
"Yeah?" She says. "I didn't know about Maine, or Oregon."
"You learn something new every day," the boy says sarcastically. It isn't until she has already walked away that she realizes she never asked his name.
+ + + + + + + +
The man who was yesterday shouting at the guards (you locked me in this goddamn room goddamn you, you can't lock me in this goddamn place and not pay some goddamn attention --) is today slumped with his back against the cell door, glaring flatly across the cell. Maybe, Caitlin thinks, he is silently raging against ankles. Goddamn ankles, them and their goddamn nerve, wearing those goddamn socks...
She has to work not to laugh as she sits down next to him.
"Did I offend you?" He says.
She tries not to sound startled that he spoke first. "Offend me?"
"Yesterday," he says, "when I was cursing. Did I offend you?"
He sounds so surprisingly old-fashioned that she stifles a laugh. It's a pleasant surprise, really, especially for a girl who spent most of her teenage years teasingly asking her brother what assorted cuss words meant. You built a colorful vocabulary when your after school job was bartending in the family pub.
"No," she says, "I'm a bit used to it."
"Irish tempers?" He asks. "Or am I stereotyping?"
"A bit," she says, "but I've known plenty of tempers."
His voice is calm, and level, and it sounds -- she'd call it cultured, for lack of a better word. It doesn't sound like a voice given to throwing four-letter words about, but maybe she's the one stereotyping now.
"I'm a professor," he says, "in the real world."
"Of what?" She asks, curious.
"English Literature." He sounds proud, and she wouldn't be surprised, really, if he started reciting poetry, or analyzing Shakespeare. "My brother used to come by every six months or so and berate me for being 'so goddamn high and mighty.' There was a different four-letter word every time. It was a kind of -- surprise. I used to guess which one would be next."
"Your brother --" She says, and waits. He can answer the unasked question. Or he can pretend he doesn't know what she was going to say.
"I don't know," he says, shrugging slightly, sounding almost bored, "he was in...Hmm. Colombia last, I think. He was a traveler. Maybe he got away from -- this."
Caitlin scrambles to her feet, and gets away -- as far away as she can, anyway -- from the indifference (the goddamn indifference of a man who's so goddamn high and mighty).
+ + + + + + + +
She talks to a secretary from a ceramics company, (I've got a boyfriend, you know, and when I get out of this place I'm going to marry him--) and a podiatrist, (you don't grow up thinking you want to be a foot doctor, but sometimes -- anyway, did you know it's nearly useless to go to the doctor over a broken toe? toes are too small to set--), and a musician (it's hard to make money from music, but I think I could have done it -- the thing you have to do is build up an internet presence, you have to make people talk, you have to--). Sometimes they won't look her in the eye, and sometimes they walk away in the middle of a sentence, and sometimes they tell her to go to hell.
But sometimes they look at her with wide, hungry eyes, and launch into a story. One man recited Robert Frost, just to prove that he still could. A woman wanted to tell Caitlin her phone number and home address; a little girl started explaining the myriad differences between blue and purple; a sixty year old man offered to play catch with her, providing a bouncy ball he'd had in his pocket. Slivers of technicolor lives in among the cement and the iron.
Caitlin puts off talking to the mother from the corner, though she isn't quite sure why. Maybe because of how frightened she looks -- maybe because of how helpless. She looks like she is waiting for rescue, and Caitlin pushed that hope aside long ago.
+ + + + + + + +
"My name's Caitlin," she says, in the middle of the second week.
The woman peers up, wide-eyed, from between the by now greasy strands of hair covering her face. She looks more frightened than the child she is sheltering, and Caitlin resists the urge to put a hand on her shoulder.
"Mine's Alice," the little girl volunteers, "an' this is mom."
Caitlin smiles, the corner of her mouth lifting up. "Hello, Alice."
The woman is still staring at her, but when the little girl tugs on her hand, she finally relents and opens her mouth.
"I'm Lucy," she says, and then clamps her mouth shut again, as though afraid of what will escape.
Caitlin nods, and smiles, and before she knows it Alice has tugged her to the ground and is regaling her with stories of how nice it was at home (in New Jersey, apparently) and how good Alice is at soccer (and baseball, and basketball, but not volleyball, that's no fun), and how stupid it is to play fairy princess.
"When you play fairy princess," Alice explains, "you always have to wait in the castle to be rescued. I bet I could kill a dragon."
Lucy finally smiles, her arm wrapping around Alice's thin shoulders, and reaches up to brush her hair back with one hand. "You could," she says reassuringly.
I bet I could too, Caitlin thinks, and knows she has found good company.
+ + + + + + + +
Author: amazingly_me. :]
Characters/Pairings: Caitlin. Vague mentions of Peter/Caitlin? Sort of? :P
Rating: PG? Slight language, and some depressing themes. I promise it isn't all angst, all the time. ;]
Recipient: karrenia_rune
Prompt: Caitlin in the future, not a damsel in distress.
Summary: When Caitlin wakes up, stiff and numb, on the second day of quarantine, she knows that she cannot be just another face. These faces will get lost in the shuffle.
Author's Notes: Title taken from Paul Simon's, "You Can Call Me Al," because the entire album is nothing if not lyrical, and I am constantly gacking titles from it. ;] Rather depressing, though hopefully the ending isn't entirely sad.
The future is made of cold cement floors and angry iron bars, of a quarantine that is really a prison, of faces.
The future is made of faces. Scared faces, angry faces, hopeless faces, and Caitlin, Caitlin is just another face.
When Caitlin wakes up, stiff and numb, on the second day of quarantine (imprisonment) she knows that she cannot be just another face. These faces will get lost in the shuffle. They will become numbers. They will become statistics. The woman in the corner, her hair falling in curtains around her face, a child pressed against her thigh, will be death number five hundred and twenty-six, this year. The boy, perhaps sixteen, who is bouncing his heel against the relentless stone wall, will be number six hundred and twelve. The middle-aged man who is trying to start a conversation with one of the guards, trying to get a newspaper, a cup of coffee, a glance in his direction, will be number six hundred and seventy-seven. Disease and fear is settling over these people, these numbers. Hope, Caitlin thinks, is conspicuous by its absence.
Caitlin has to make somebody care.
+ + + + + + + +
"Where're you from then?" She asks the boy, the teenager. He has switched heels, is thumping at the wall with his left foot now, and it takes him a minute to realize she's talking to him.
"Why?" He asks, narrowing his eyes. She cannot decide if he is suspicious or annoyed.
"'Cause," she says, fighting to stop from jiggling her own foot, "I'm curious."
"You've got a weird accent," he says, and she makes a conscious choice to laugh.
"I'm Irish," she says, "now play fair and tell me where you're from."
"Portland," he says, "Oregon. Not Maine."
There is a pause, and for an instant his foot stops moving. "Everybody always thinks I mean Maine. But there's more than one Portland."
"Yeah?" She says. "I didn't know about Maine, or Oregon."
"You learn something new every day," the boy says sarcastically. It isn't until she has already walked away that she realizes she never asked his name.
+ + + + + + + +
The man who was yesterday shouting at the guards (you locked me in this goddamn room goddamn you, you can't lock me in this goddamn place and not pay some goddamn attention --) is today slumped with his back against the cell door, glaring flatly across the cell. Maybe, Caitlin thinks, he is silently raging against ankles. Goddamn ankles, them and their goddamn nerve, wearing those goddamn socks...
She has to work not to laugh as she sits down next to him.
"Did I offend you?" He says.
She tries not to sound startled that he spoke first. "Offend me?"
"Yesterday," he says, "when I was cursing. Did I offend you?"
He sounds so surprisingly old-fashioned that she stifles a laugh. It's a pleasant surprise, really, especially for a girl who spent most of her teenage years teasingly asking her brother what assorted cuss words meant. You built a colorful vocabulary when your after school job was bartending in the family pub.
"No," she says, "I'm a bit used to it."
"Irish tempers?" He asks. "Or am I stereotyping?"
"A bit," she says, "but I've known plenty of tempers."
His voice is calm, and level, and it sounds -- she'd call it cultured, for lack of a better word. It doesn't sound like a voice given to throwing four-letter words about, but maybe she's the one stereotyping now.
"I'm a professor," he says, "in the real world."
"Of what?" She asks, curious.
"English Literature." He sounds proud, and she wouldn't be surprised, really, if he started reciting poetry, or analyzing Shakespeare. "My brother used to come by every six months or so and berate me for being 'so goddamn high and mighty.' There was a different four-letter word every time. It was a kind of -- surprise. I used to guess which one would be next."
"Your brother --" She says, and waits. He can answer the unasked question. Or he can pretend he doesn't know what she was going to say.
"I don't know," he says, shrugging slightly, sounding almost bored, "he was in...Hmm. Colombia last, I think. He was a traveler. Maybe he got away from -- this."
Caitlin scrambles to her feet, and gets away -- as far away as she can, anyway -- from the indifference (the goddamn indifference of a man who's so goddamn high and mighty).
+ + + + + + + +
She talks to a secretary from a ceramics company, (I've got a boyfriend, you know, and when I get out of this place I'm going to marry him--) and a podiatrist, (you don't grow up thinking you want to be a foot doctor, but sometimes -- anyway, did you know it's nearly useless to go to the doctor over a broken toe? toes are too small to set--), and a musician (it's hard to make money from music, but I think I could have done it -- the thing you have to do is build up an internet presence, you have to make people talk, you have to--). Sometimes they won't look her in the eye, and sometimes they walk away in the middle of a sentence, and sometimes they tell her to go to hell.
But sometimes they look at her with wide, hungry eyes, and launch into a story. One man recited Robert Frost, just to prove that he still could. A woman wanted to tell Caitlin her phone number and home address; a little girl started explaining the myriad differences between blue and purple; a sixty year old man offered to play catch with her, providing a bouncy ball he'd had in his pocket. Slivers of technicolor lives in among the cement and the iron.
Caitlin puts off talking to the mother from the corner, though she isn't quite sure why. Maybe because of how frightened she looks -- maybe because of how helpless. She looks like she is waiting for rescue, and Caitlin pushed that hope aside long ago.
+ + + + + + + +
"My name's Caitlin," she says, in the middle of the second week.
The woman peers up, wide-eyed, from between the by now greasy strands of hair covering her face. She looks more frightened than the child she is sheltering, and Caitlin resists the urge to put a hand on her shoulder.
"Mine's Alice," the little girl volunteers, "an' this is mom."
Caitlin smiles, the corner of her mouth lifting up. "Hello, Alice."
The woman is still staring at her, but when the little girl tugs on her hand, she finally relents and opens her mouth.
"I'm Lucy," she says, and then clamps her mouth shut again, as though afraid of what will escape.
Caitlin nods, and smiles, and before she knows it Alice has tugged her to the ground and is regaling her with stories of how nice it was at home (in New Jersey, apparently) and how good Alice is at soccer (and baseball, and basketball, but not volleyball, that's no fun), and how stupid it is to play fairy princess.
"When you play fairy princess," Alice explains, "you always have to wait in the castle to be rescued. I bet I could kill a dragon."
Lucy finally smiles, her arm wrapping around Alice's thin shoulders, and reaches up to brush her hair back with one hand. "You could," she says reassuringly.
I bet I could too, Caitlin thinks, and knows she has found good company.
+ + + + + + + +