(Untitled)

[goingtodorking]

Most of the time, Karen's quite happy playing in her own little world. She stays within earshot of whatever Rollie and Shadow are doing and she plays with her toys or her books. She makes up little worlds. She still really likes playing Spy Dudes, or Devil Princesses, but she also plays Surgery and Bombers and Hide and Read. Right now, she's

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[playingtheenemy]

Ainsley had seen Karen in as many permutations as she could count, but quiet and thoughtful had hardly come up at all and when Ainsley watched her for a moment and it didn't change, her concern really started to twitch. "Karen?" she chanced quietly, crouching down before her slowly. "Are you okay?"

[goingtodorking]

"Mmmm."

Karen looks at the picture some more, tracing one finger over her mom's face in the picture. She's got sand under her fingernails. She wrinkles her nose and looks back at the book again.

"Sometimes things just show up, don't they?"

[playingtheenemy]

Ainsley came even closer until she could see exactly what Karen was looking at and interpreted it with a wince and a wish that it could be anything else, just for Karen's sake. "Yeah, they do," Ainsley agreed, softening her tone in the hopes she would sound a bit more maternal. "Sometimes you get good things or bad things from home."

[goingtodorking]

"I don't think this is a bad thing," says Karen, carefully, still lying on her back, looking up at the picture. "And the dinosaur book's not a bad thing either. At least I don't have to share it with Ben anymore."

She gives a little sigh, heart heavy, frown line creased between straight dark eyebrows.

[get_her]

Ray's face popped up from the other side of the sofa, his usual grin plastered across it. "There you are! I was just thinking I could go for a game of Spy-" He cut himself off at the look on her face, his smile fading. "What's wrong?"

[goingtodorking]

"Nothing's wrong."

Karen's still looking at the picture, tracing the tip of one finger in a circle around each face in turn. She's got her picture of Jake, but she'd almost been starting to forget what everybody else looked like.

[get_her]

Ray didn't buy it, but he didn't press the issue - at least, not yet. "Whatcha got there?" he asked instead, nodding towards the picture she held.

[goingtodorking]

She turns it so that she could show it to him.

"This is my Mum, my Dad, Jake, Ben and Grandad," she says, pointing at each of them in turn. "Auntie Angela's not in it."

[dumbassbastards]

Rollie is kneeling on the sofa and looking over the back of it when he finds her, which is definitely not the most dignified position to be in. But then, when it comes to Karen, it sort of comes with the territory.

"There are you are," he says. "I was wondering where you'd gotten off to."

[goingtodorking]

"I'm playing Hide and Read," says Karen. She's pretty sure that Rollie knows what that is because he was the one who suggested it.

She holds the photo out to him.

"I found this."

[dumbassbastards]

It's easy for him to figure out what the photo is of. It's a lot harder to figure out where it came from.

"You just found this?" he says, still hanging over the back of the sofa. "Where, Karen?"

[goingtodorking]

"In the back of my dinosaur book."

She solemnly sets the photograph down on her tummy so that she can pick up the dinosaur book, turned to the back page, and show Rollie's what's written there.

"I wrote that," she supplies.

[fuckjazztoo]

1900 is coming into the room from the kitchen, making a beeline for the piano with a glass of water in his hand. He pauses when he hears the sound of pages flipping behind the couch and walks over to investigate. Somehow, he isn't surprised to find Karen there.

"Hello," he says. "What's that you've got?"

[goingtodorking]

"You're not wearing your wings," says Karen, almost wearily, but, then again, she's not wearing her wings either. Still lying on her back, she holds the picture out for him to look at.

"I just found this."

[fuckjazztoo]

"I'm not," he agrees. To his credit, he looks a little guilty about it. "Tomorrow I will, how's that?" He smiles helpfully before moving closer to get a better look at the picture.

"Is that your family?"

[goingtodorking]

"Better."

Karen draws in a hiccupy little breath and studies the photograph closer, still tracing faces. "It's my Mummy and my Daddy and Jake and Ben and Grandad. Auntie Angela's not in it."

Karen might actually brighten a little bit when she realises that.